Venezuela's Supreme Court on Thursday backed President Nicolas Maduro's claims that he won last month's presidential election and said voting tallies published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
The ruling came amid protests and international criticism that erupted after the July 28 vote in which Maduro was seeking a third, six-year term.
The high court's decision, read Thursday in an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response a request by Maduro to review vote totals showing he had won by more than 1 million votes.
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.
Opposition volunteers were claimed to have collected copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, which were said to show opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The official tally sheets printed by each voting machine carry a QR code that make it easy for anyone to verify the results and are almost impossible to replicate.
The high court's ruling certifying the results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility.
Specifically, the outside experts noted that authorities didn't release a breakdown of results by each of the 30,000 voting booths nationwide, as they have in almost every previous election.
The government has claimed that a foreign cyberattack staged by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the vote counting on election night and publication of the disaggregated results.
Gonzalez was the only one of 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court's audit, a fact noted by the justices, who in their ruling accused him of trying to spread panic.
The former diplomat and his chief backer, opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding after the election as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on demonstrations that erupted spontaneously throughout the country protesting the results.
Numerous foreign governments, including the U.S. as well as several leftist allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release the full breakdown of results.
