By The newspaper
07 Aug 2024, 09:44 AM EDT
Venezuelan opposition leader and representative Edmundo González refused to appear before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on Wednesday, which summoned him in a case to “certify” the results of the July 28 elections, considering that it does not correspond to any procedure contemplated in the laws and constitutes a “violation of due process.”
“If I were to go before the Electoral Chamber, I would do so in a situation of absolute defenselessness, because the procedure carried out by the Electoral Chamber, as announced by the media, does not correspond to any legal procedure contemplated in the Organic Law of the TSJ and another law on electoral jurisdiction,” X said in a statement published.
The Venezuelan opposition leader indicated that the Electoral Chamber cannot “usurp” the constitutional functions of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and certify results that have not yet “been produced in accordance with the Constitution and the law, with access by participants to the original minutes that serve as the basis for a total and proclamation and with the appropriate audits.”
The former Venezuelan ambassador to Argentina assured that if he appears before the TSJ he will be in “absolute vulnerability due to defenselessness and violation of due process” and, he stated, that he will not put his freedom at risk and, particularly, the “will of the Venezuelan people expressed on July 28, 2024.”
“I urge the authorities to regain their common sense and to seek, through open dialogue, channels to channel the arguments of each party, in the constitutionally competent body and within a framework acceptable to all, in which human rights are safeguarded,” he wrote.
Maduro’s Supreme Court summoned the 10 former presidential candidates who competed in the July 28 elections for different dates to continue the process that the court is carrying out to “certify” the official result of the presidential elections, which has been questioned inside and outside Venezuela.
Likewise, the president of the Supreme Court, the pro-government Caryslia Rodríguez, stated that the former candidates must attend to the matter in person, and reiterated that failure to appear “will entail the consequences provided for in the legal system,” without giving details of which ones she is referring to.
According to the agenda set by the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ, this Wednesday González Urrutia, leader of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), who claims to have won the presidential elections by a large margin and to have published “83.5%” of the voting records to prove this claim.
According to the pro-Chavez outlet VTV, the president of the CNE, the pro-government Elvis Amoroso, delivered the minutes of the election scrutiny to the TSJ on Monday, without having yet published the minutes of the award and proclamation of Maduro in a presumed re-election.
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