Chavista justice orders a halt to the counting of votes in Barinas, home state of Hugo Chávez

The Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela ordered this Monday to suspend the counting of votes for the adjudication and proclamation of the candidates for governor of Barinas, the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez, after the regional elections, held eight days ago.

This was announced by the TSJ in a statement in which he said he had admitted a constitutional protection action filed by the politician Adolfo Ramón Superlano “For the alleged violation of the constitutional rights to participation and suffrage”, provided for in the Constitution and before “The climate of tension between the political militancies”.

Last Friday, after five days of the elections, the CNE had announced that the National Electoral Board (JNE) would be in charge of totalizing the “missing acts in the election of the governor of Barinas”, a state that the opposition Freddy Superlano and the Chavista Argenis Chávez dispute, brother of the late president Hugo Chavez, by a slim margin.

The decision of the TSJ made public today also declares that the amparo action includes “The alleged existence of administrative and criminal procedures and inquiries against” Freddy Superlano, which are “taken before the competent organs of the State” and have observed that the candidate “is disqualified from the exercise of any public office.”

“Likewise, the decision indicates that the precautionary request is declared admissible” and, consequently, “orders the CNE to immediately suspend the procedures and / or processes related to the totalization, adjudication and proclamation of the CNE regarding the candidates for the position of governor of the state of Barinas,” the statement concludes.

Since last Monday, the CNE awarded 22 of the 23 governor positions and 334 of the 335 mayors and mayors, so that only those corresponding to the Arismendi mayor’s office and the Barinas government remain to be awarded.

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