Caracas, Venezuela - Venezuela's Supreme Court, loyal to President Nicolas Maduro's government, on Friday ruled two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles ineligible to seek office in elections due this year.

Henrique Capriles

The court upheld 15-year ban imposed on Capriles in 2017 for alleged administrative irregularities when he was a governor -- a finding the opposition rejects as deeply flawed.

He had stood unsuccessfully in the 2013 election against Maduro, and before that against the late Hugo Chavez.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule Friday on a challenge against the ineligibility of Maria Corina Machado.

She won overwhelming support in a primary vote last October that confirmed her as the opposition presidential candidate in elections for which no date has yet been set.

But Machado remains technically disqualified for alleged corruption -- a charge widely regarded as trumped-up -- and for backing sanctions against Caracas.

Capriles was also a candidate in the opposition-run primary vote, but stood aside in favor of Machado. He was seen as a possible stand-in if she was prevented from running.

- 'Year of the Venezuelan people' -

Maduro's government and the opposition agreed in talks in Barbados last year to hold free and fair elections in 2024 with international observers present.

That agreement saw the United States ease sanctions against Venezuela, allowing Chevron to resume limited oil extraction as part of an effort to keep down global prices as the West pressed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

It also led to a prisoner swap.

Policial disqualifications such as those of Machado and Capriles are imposed by a body called the office of the Comptroller General. The opposition has denounced them as an unconstitutional tool for the governing party to get rivals out of the way.

Maduro has not confirmed whether he will seek office for a third time.

His re-election to a second, successive term in 2018 was not recognized by dozens of countries and met with a barrage of sanctions.

After the Barbados agreement and under pressure from the United States, the Supreme Court created a mechanism for would-be candidates to challenge their disqualification.

Machado filed a challenge to her ineligibility under the mechanism but Capriles used a different avenue to appeal -- the reason given by the court Friday for upholding his ban.

"Today, more than ever, let nothing and no-one remove us from the electoral route," Capriles wrote on X after the ruling.

"2024 has to be the year of the Venezuelan people."

Maduro on Thursday said the Barbados agreement was "mortally wounded" after government authorities claimed to have foiled numerous plots to assassinate him.