CARACAS: Venezuela's Supreme Court effectively blocked high-profile opposition challenger Leopoldo Lopez on Monday from running against President Hugo Chavez in a 2012 vote despite an international ruling in his favor.
The decision narrows the field of aspirants to take on Chavez in the Oct. 7, 2012, election for leadership of the South American OPEC member nation.
The Supreme Court's ruling will draw the ire of human rights groups who say the socialist leader has stamped on freedoms in the nation of 29 million people.
Lopez, a 40-year-old US-educated politician, was one of three leading opposition candidates vying to win the opposition coalition's presidential primary in February.
But the Supreme Court chose to ignore a ruling by the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights last month that said Lopez's disqualification from politics over corruption allegations was unjustified.
"This Supreme Court ... declares that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights decision against the Venezuelan state cannot be executed," the court said in a statement, specifying that Lopez can run in elections but not take up any office.
The charismatic and baby-faced Lopez made his name as mayor of the wealthy Chacao district in Caracas. He was favored to win the race for mayor of the whole city in 2008, but he and scores of other politicians -- most from the opposition -- were blocked by Chavez's comptroller general.
Accused but not tried for corruption, Lopez was barred from seeking public office until 2014.
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