“The election of such a professional, balanced and high-level National Electoral Council (CNE) is good news for Venezuela,” stressed a euphoric Nicolás Maduro before the country after the swearing in of a new electoral referee designed to suit him next year’s presidential elections. The Bolivarian caudillo has imposed as head of the CNE one of his closest collaborators, Elvis Amoroso, who, to make matters worse, was in charge of the disqualification of the opposition leaders from the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic.
“The disabler who disables the most, will be a good disabler. It is his prize for pleasing the autocracy,” criticized the Chavista critic Nicmer Evans. Thanks to the disqualifications of Amoroso, always at the service of the Miraflores Palace, neither the conservative María Corina Machado, who leads all the polls for the opposition primaries in October, nor the centrist Henrique Capriles can participate in next year’s presidential elections . Amoroso is sanctioned by the United States.
“He is an unconditional and complicit in dirty tasks,” recalled Juan Guaidó, former president in charge also disabled, from exile.
On the bench of substitute magistrates, Maduro has another tough Chavista, General Fabio Zavarse, designated by the International Criminal Court for “induction and complicity” in crimes against humanity. The opposition has not forgotten how Zavarse, who was the general commander of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), allowed the violent ambush of Chavista paramilitaries against his deputies at the very gates of the CNE.
Along with the controversial Amoroso there will be two other “furious maduristas”, as defined by the opposition leader Luis Florido. This is Colonel Carlos Quintero, the shadow power of the CNE in recent years, and the until now secretary of the revolutionary legislative body, Rosalba Gil, widow of Darío Vivas, another historic member of the pro-Maduro faction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ( PSUV). It was precisely Cilia Flores, the first revolutionary combatant and wife of Maduro, who was in charge of directing with an iron hand the process that has led to the replacement of the previous CNE by the current one, both under the formula of three revolutionaries for two opponents, these without any ability to prevent revolutionary arbitrariness.
On this occasion, Chavismo has given its approval as magistrates to Aimé Nogal Méndez, close to the opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), and Juan Carlos Delpino, who was substitute rector of the CNE in 2020 at the request of the Supreme Court of Justice ( TSJ). Nogal is identified with the group of Stalin González, a UNT leader who has participated in the negotiations in Mexico, under international supervision, between the government and the democratic opposition.
“The CNE folded into the system will be one of the many barriers that we are going to tear down,” Machado added. Once again, the CNE fails to comply with the constitutional requirements, which expressly prohibit those elected from being linked to political organizations.
With this coup in the electoral tribunal, the “son of Chávez” was not only seeking maximum fidelity once he has made the decision to remain in power until 2030 at any price. In the Miraflores Palace they also tried to impact the opposition with a few weeks to go before the primaries were held. And he has achieved it.
“This CNE is one more farce of the regime, we reject it. It is the result of the unanimous alliance of the dictatorship and its pseudo-opponents,” protested Julio Borges, leader of Primero Justicia (PJ), who has lost one of his magistrates and he sees how both UNT and Acción Democrática, which make up the G-3 of the opposition, will sit in the electoral body.
The opposition Unitary Platform criticized the two parties for being part of the new CNE behind the back of the National Commission for Primaries.
“What will the new CNE do? Cancel the primaries and organize fraudulent and early mega-elections (presidential and local), “said political analyst Georg Eickhoff.