Supreme Court confirms Maduro’s victory
Supreme Court confirms Maduro’s victory
The Bolivarian Revolution continues its consolidation
On August 22, 2024, the Electoral Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice, designed by the Constitution to adjudicate electoral questions, ratified Nicolas Maduro as the winner of the July 28 presidential elections. The verdict of the Chamber is final and cannot be appealed. Maduro will take the oath of office for his third presidential term on January 10, 2025. His term extends to January 10, 2031.
In a press conference attended by government officials, diplomatic representatives, and members of the press, Supreme Court magistrate Caryslia Rodríguez began by reaffirming the jurisdiction of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court on the question, noting that recent electoral processes in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States were ultimately settled by judicial rulings. In a move unanticipated by the extreme right opposition, Maduro, following the announcement of his electoral victory by the National Electoral Council, went in person to the offices of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court to request an investigation and review of the voting records. Maduro declared that he was seeking the protection of the Supreme Court from false accusations of electoral fraud by the extreme Right opposition, which had contracted fascist and criminal gangs to engage in violent actions in a destabilization strategy supported by the U.S. government.
“The US attempted coup against Venezuela,” August 9, 2024
Magistrate Rodríguez proceeded at the press conference to read the verdict of the Court. It stated that a team of national and international experts had conducted a review, with the highest technical standards, of the voting records that had been submitted by the electoral parties and candidates. The verdict asserted that the investigation found that the voting records fully coincided with the data of the tallying centers of the National Electoral Council, which had declared Maduro the winner with fifty-two percent of the vote, as against forty-three percent for Edmundo González. The verdict further mandated the National Electoral Council to publish the final results in the National Gazette before the August 28 deadline established by Venezuelan electoral procedures.
Magistrate Rodríguez also reiterated that opposition candidate Edmundo González was in contempt of court for not appearing in response to the Court’s summons and for not submitting requested evidence. She also called upon Attorney General Tarek William Saab to launch investigations for possible criminal conduct, including the usurpation of state functions, forging documents, and instigating violence.
On August 22, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces issued a statement confirming their compliance with the ruling issued by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice. The statement asserted in part:
The Bolivarian National Armed Forces, always adhering to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic, fully and categorically comply with the ruling issued by the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which upholds the legal challenge regarding the presidential elections of July 28, validating the results previously issued by the National Electoral Council.
Once again, the Venezuelan State, through its legitimate institutions, guarantees respect for the political will of the people, the preservation of peace, and the stability of the nation; which was attempted to be disrupted by far-right fascist groups that sought to carry out a coup d’état, resorting to violence and confrontation among fellow citizens, as well as terrorist, vandalistic, and cybernetic acts, which were duly controlled by the efforts of the civil-military-police union, but unfortunately left a tragic toll of several deaths and injuries, as well as considerable material damage.
. . . . . . . . . .
We reaffirm our absolute loyalty to citizen Nicolas Maduro Moros, Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our Commander-in-Chief, re-elected by the popular power, legitimately proclaimed by the Electoral Power, and now ratified by the highest court of justice in the country, for the upcoming presidential term 2025-2031.
At the same time, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to continue defending the inalienable rights of the Venezuelan people, such as life, peace, and their integral development.
On August 23, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) issued a communiqué that welcomes the decision of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice. It declared that the decision by the highest court of the nation is “an irrefutable demonstration that Venezuelan institutions ensure for the Venezuelan people the full exercise of their sovereignty and self-determination.” The Bolivarian Alliance “applauds the worthy example of sovereignty without interference of any kind and celebrates the unquestionable victory of President Nicolás Maduro Moros.”
To remind, ALBA-TCP was founded by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro in 2004 as an organization of governments in Latin America and the Caribbean that seeks a mutually beneficial integration among the nations of the region, an alternative to U.S.-directed integration. It has ten member states: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Christopher and Nevis, and Saint Lucia.
On August 26, meeting in the XI Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty in Caracas, the ten heads of state and government declared:
1. We strongly condemn any coup d’état or attempted coup d’état, as they constitute the violent, illegal and unconstitutional way that threatens democracy, peace and life itself, as well as the destabilizing plans and actions promoted by foreign factors, which attempt to disregard the will of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed democratically and legitimately at the ballot box.
2. We strongly repudiate the brutal communicational warfare, full of hatred, intolerance, discrimination and contempt through social networks, strategically aimed at the younger generations of Venezuelan society, victims of disinformation and hyper-information to promote violence, vandalism and barbarism.
3. We reject the attacks and acts of vandalism against persons, public infrastructure, and religious and patriotic symbols. . ..
4. We denounce the disregard of the official results of the electoral process by a violent and fascist sector of the Venezuelan opposition. . ..
5. We demand that the international community respect the sovereignty, self-determination and democratic will of the Venezuelan people. We regret the decision of some governments to question the electoral results in Venezuela and to promote discourses that do not reflect the reality of the country. . ..
6. We recognize that Venezuela is a free, independent, democratic and sovereign State that has its own institutions and laws to address its internal affairs. In this regard, we welcome the decision of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to settle this electoral controversy, in a worthy example of full exercise of sovereignty and, thus, guaranteeing peace and tranquility to the Venezuelan people.
7. We salute all the participants in the electoral contest who appeared before the Supreme Court of Justice to contribute to the peace and stability of the Venezuelan people, which is a sign of political maturity and active democracy in this sister nation, while we regret that some political actors, who denounced alleged irregularities, did not appear before the Supreme Court of Justice, failing to fulfill their commitment to the people as presidential candidates.
8. We congratulate the Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros and his people who, with resilience and adherence to justice, have been able to defeat the attempted coup d’état, and we reaffirm our commitment and unrestricted support to the constitutional, legitimate and democratically elected government.
9. We reaffirm, once again, that Latin America and the Caribbean is a Zone of Peace. We demand the strict compliance with the obligation not to intervene, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and to fully respect the inalienable right of every State to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system as an essential requirement to guarantee peaceful coexistence among nations, peace and stability in our region.
We gather to defend, today more than ever, the brother Venezuelan people from the tentacles of fascism and raise our voices to reject interference, manipulation and imperialist intentions to seize our legitimate rights and resources, and which have caused so much harm to our peoples.
To defend Venezuela is to defend the dream of union and brotherhood of our heroes and peoples.
On August 26, Chinese Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, following the ratification of the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro by the Supreme Court of Justice, called upon the international community to respect the choice that has been made by the Venezuelan people. In a press conference in Beijing, he declared, “All parties should respect the choice made by the Venezuelan people and respect Venezuela’s right to choose its own development path. The Venezuelan government and people are capable of handling their domestic affairs.”
Previously, on July 30, Chinese President Xi Jinping had congratulated Maduro for his electoral victory, announced by the National Electoral Council on July 29, and for his leadership in pursuing a development path that aligns with the national conditions of Venezuela. Xi noted that China and Venezuela are joint development partners, and that China supports Venezuela’s efforts to maintain it national sovereignty as well as “its just struggle against external interference.”
The Venezuelan government has conducted 31 national elections in the last quarter century, either nationwide referendums, presidential elections, or elections to the national legislature, and the Chavistas have won twenty-nine of them. This has been an impressive process, which prompted former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to declare that Venezuela has one of the best elections in the world. Only a complete disregard for empirical observation, driven by short-term political/economic interests, can explain the refusal to accept the Venezuelan electoral process by the extreme right in Venezuela and the foreign policy establishment of the United States.
However, as impressive as they are, the thirty-one elections have been conducted in accordance with the rules and procedures of representative democracy. Elections of this type are limited by the fact that electoral success depends on the mobilization of resources, which generally implies the mobilization of financial resources, unless structural obstacles to the role of money are in place. Which has the consequence of giving unreasonable advantage in the political process to those who possess concentrated financial resources. This dynamic creates a phenomenon in which public discourse is framed from above, typically through think tanks, universities, and the most prestigious institutions of civil society.
The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, seeks to overcome the inherent limitations of elections developed according to the norms of representative democracy through the creation of Communal Councils throughout the country. The Communal Councils are formed by the people through open assemblies, encompassing approximately 100 families in urban areas and thirty families in rural areas. The communal councils seek to identify and implement local priorities and projects with respect to housing, health, water, or electricity, with the full and equal participation of all citizens over the age of fifteen, and with the support of a financial unit and an oversight unit.
Jorge Arreaza, the vice president of Communal Councils and Communes of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, declared that when the minister, mayor, or governor is able to connect with the Communal Council in the implementation of a concrete agenda established by the communities, we can in such situations speak of “true participatory democracy.” The Communal Council was created by Hugo Chávez, based on the concept of people’s power from the grassroots.
Arreaza noted that the Councils were inspired by Chávez’s experience in countries like China, Cuba, and Vietnam, which have developed structures of people’s power and local decision-making and participation. With respect to said countries, it should be noted that their people’s revolutions took political power in conditions in which the previous political establishment was completely discredited and disintegrated, so that structures of people’s assemblies and people’s power could be developed as the structural foundation for an alternative process for the establishment of government, in which local assemblies elected by the people elect higher legislative assemblies and the executive branches of government.
In this regard, the political situation in Venezuela in the late 1990s was different from the situations in China, Vietnam, and Cuba at the time of the triumph of their people’s revolutions. In the case of Venezuela, the established political parties were discredited, but not the process of representative democracy itself. Understanding that revolutions cannot be copied, Chávez adapted his revolutionary strategy to the conditions of Venezuela. He created an alternative political formation, which arrived to political power using the structures of representative democracy, armed with a discourse that further discredited the established political parties for their subservience to the interests of foreign powers and which outlined an alternative program of action.
At the same time, seeing the virtues of people’s assemblies in China, Vietnam, and Cuba, Chávez inaugurated the establishment of local people’s assemblies, with the goal of connecting them to the political structures and processes of representative democracy. The complete integration of people’s assemblies and the structures of representative democracy, synthesizing the two, could perhaps be seen as a long-term goal of constructing socialism from the neocolonial situation of Venezuela.
The Communal Councils held their Second National Popular Consultation on August 25. Blanca Eekhout is a legislator who serves as President of the National Assembly’s Commission for Communal Development. She emphasized that in the Communal Councils the people decide on the most critical local development projects to satisfy their needs, and they execute, supervise, and guarantee the projects. In the local assemblies, the people identify and propose seven main projects, and then a territorial voting process is held to choose which one will be given priority.
Eekhout maintains that the consolidation of the complementary process of people’s power is the road to strengthening participatory democracy in Venezuela. She described it as a process of “transforming the old bourgeois representative democracy into a true, protagonistic, just, and dignified direct democracy.”
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Final considerations
There have been various indications that Venezuela is successfully resisting the U.S.-directed attempted coup d’état. These include the incapacity of the extreme right-wing opposition to generate sustained protest; the limited capacity of the United States and the OAS to marshal effective diplomatic isolation of Venezuela; the support of the Venezuelan Supreme Court and the armed forces for the ruling of the National Electoral Council; the decisive action of the office of the attorney general against illegal actions by the extreme right-wing opposition; and the capacity of the government to move forward in its efforts to consolidate the emerging structures of participatory democracy.
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