WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that Venezuela's electoral infrastructure was designed to rig elections and so must be quickly replaced before a valid election can be held.
Rubio spoke to reporters by phone a day after opposition leader Maria Corina Machado returned to Venezuela for the first time since the US captured he country's then President Nicolas Maduro in January and took him to New York for trial.
The US believes that talks currently underway between the interim government in Caracas and opposition politicians will see a new supreme judicial tribunal in place by the end of this year and a new electoral council shortly thereafter, a senior US State Department official said earlier.
"I think we're making real progress in that regard," Rubio said. "But if anybody tries to derail that process, they're doing a great harm to Venezuela."
Maduro's government had set up the country's electoral infrastructure to rig elections so must be quickly changed, Rubio added.
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis and Christian Martinez; Editing by Nick Zieminski)