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CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Supreme Court said today it had received no evidence from the opposition coalition in its disputed July 28 presidential election and warned that its decision on determining the winner would be final.
The opposition claimed the South American country’s electoral body was loyal to President Nicolas Maduro and declared the leader had won re-election, while the opposition considered its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez the winner.
The election management department has not yet released detailed voting results for the election, and its website has been paralyzed since the early hours of July 29.
The opposition has published vote results online, which show Gonzalez received twice as many votes as Maduro.
In Venezuela, voting machines print three copies of votes for the electoral authorities, the ruling party and its challenger.
Maduro appealed to the Supreme Court last week to certify the election results, leading the court to subpoena all candidates who ran in the election.
Gonzalez did not attend, saying he would have risked arrest if he had. Opposition members who did attend pressured electoral authorities to release the votes, even though the alliance had previously said it had locked up its ballots for safekeeping.
“No members of the United Platform (opposition coalition) submitted any electoral materials to the court,” Chief Justice Carislia Rodriguez told journalists and diplomats today.
Rodriguez said the court did receive Maduro and the votes from the electoral body were counted.
The judge said the court’s decision would be “non-appealable and must be followed” once the election investigation is concluded.
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico issued a joint statement on Thursday urging electoral bodies to make detailed voting results public and said the Supreme Court could not resolve the matter.
Other Latin American countries, as well as the United States, refused to acknowledge Maduro’s victory. His allies Russia and China congratulated him.
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