The United Nations Human Rights Committee has ordered Venezuela to “refrain from distorting” voting numbers for July’s presidential election.
Voting tallies — a detailed official breakdown of votes from each polling station — have been at the heart of the dispute over who won the election.
The government-aligned National Electoral Council (CNE) declared incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the winner but failed to provide voting numbers to back up its claim.
The opposition, which collected and published more than 80 percent of the voting tally with the help of accredited election witnesses, says it proves its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, was a landslide winner.
The Human Rights Committee – a UN body made up of 18 independent experts – said it was investigating allegations of electoral fraud following a complaint brought by a law firm by a Venezuelan voter.
As part of that investigation, the committee demanded that the Venezuelan state preserve detailed voting data for the July 28 presidential election.
The CNE – which is packed with government loyalists – is under enormous pressure to release voting numbers.
But more than four months after the election, it has yet to do so, blaming an alleged computer hack on election night for its unprecedented failure to provide data within 30 days of the election date.
In contrast, the opposition quickly uploaded the voting tally to the website.
Independent observers and media, including the New York Times and CNN, say the figures show that Edmundo González won the election with 67% of the vote, compared to Maduro’s 30%.
But Nicolás Maduro has dismissed the numbers published by the opposition as “fraudulent” and maintains he is the winner of the election.
He is moving ahead with preparations for Jan. 10, when he says he will be sworn into office for his third consecutive term.
That pits him against a growing number of countries, including the United States, Italy, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Uruguay, that have recognized Gonzalez as Venezuela’s president-elect.
IHR Legal, the international law firm that brought the complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee, said the case was “important” and “historic” and that the committee “can confirm that Nicolás Maduro is not the elected president of Venezuela”.