Venezuela top court rejects challenge to Maduro win

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela top court rejects challenge to Maduro win

(AFP) / 26 May 2013

In a ruling out Saturday, Venezuela’s Supreme Court rejected one of six challenges to the April 14 presidential election, which saw Hugo Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro win by a razor-thin margin.

Oficially, Maduro — the late president Chavez’s handpicked successor — won the controversial election by 1.49 percentage points. His rival, Henrique Capriles, has refused to concede.

The court that a lawsuit filed by Venezuelans living abroad that alleged fraud and government interference lacked details, was confusing, and contains ‘value judgments without the justification required under the law.’

The court must now answer legal challenges presented by the united opposition front that supported Capriles’s candidacy.

In their first case, the opposition calls for a full election do-over on constitutional grounds, claiming the election was marred by ‘bribery, violence and fraud.’

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[Socialistlemur]

1. It's interesting to see the response being delayed this much

Those six complaints must be quite complex and include a lot of paperwork if they are taking so much time just to decide whether to consider the case. Or they are politically loaded? I read the decision issued by the court regarding the failure by Hugo Chavez to show up for the investiture ceremony and it was flawed. But they changed the Chief Justice, and maybe the new one is a bit more familiar with legal procedure and logic.

[ocpagu]

2. Another Venezuelan institution...

... confirms what we already knew. Capriles has nothing.

[Catherina]

3. The Corporate Media, in service of the anyone but the people, doesn't like this news

Doesn't even like it when you narrow things down for them



Imagine my shock

[Socialistlemur]

4. The corporate media is intended to serve its stockholders

Maybe I'm cynical, but I ever expected the media (corporate, private, or government owned) to be interested in much beyond the interest of the owners or those who control them. However, in a free society the sum total of all media, provided its free, does deliver a powerful service. The key is to avoid monopolies, either de facto or by the agglomeration or concentration of power in a few hands, an elite, or a special interest group. This is the really hard balancing act we must try to achieve. Thus the absolute control of the media we saw in the Soviet Union and nazi Germany, or we see today in Cuba, Iran, and other repressive regimes is a serious problem. Another problem I've noted is the control of the radio spectrum by a very right wing, call it fascist, elite in the USA. When I visit the USA I force myself to listen to it and it really gags me. I'd say in the USA my advice would be to ease the ability of small groups to broadcast a weak signal to allow more diversity of opinion. In the case of Venezuela I sense the USA media is aloof to negative, but given Chavez' continuous rants against the USA and alliance with Iran it would be really naive to expect sympathy. Chavez aimed his speech at pleasing a foreign constituency with a radical leftist position, which is always blaming USA imperialism for the problems in this world. This may have gone over very well with that audience but it sounds awful to the average us citizen. Thus media aiming to sell beer, autos and toothpaste won't treat chavism too kindly. Regarding this specific article, it's not significant. The key decisions will involve much larger claims filed by Capriles and the political organizations.