Venezuela’s Supreme Court has annulled the results of the opposition primaries for the presidential election.

Former parliament member María Corina Machado was the opposition candidate for next year’s election, but the Supreme Court’s Electoral Chamber (TSJ) upheld an election challenge due to alleged “irregularities’’ in the internal process.

The opposition election commission has three days to submit a report indicating “the mechanism for storing the election material and the place designated for it’’, the TSJ said.

It initially remained unclear whether the court’s order would annul Ms Machado’s primary victory.

The opposition did not immediately comment on the decision.

The public prosecutor’s office had opened an electoral fraud investigation of the opposition because the government opponents had conducted the primaries themselves instead of having them organised by the state electoral authority.

It is also uncertain whether the candidate can run in the presidential election.

She was banned from holding public office for 15 years because of alleged irregularities from her time as a member of parliament.

Authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro is cracking down on opponents of the government.

Venezuela has been in a severe crisis for years.

Economically, the once-rich country has suffered from mismanagement, corruption, and sanctions.

More than seven million people have left Venezuela in recent years because of poverty and violence, according to UN figures.

(dpa/NAN)