Politics

Maduro loyalist Elvis Amoroso named Venezuelan election body chief

Caracas, Aug 25 (EFE).- Pro-government figure Elvis Amoroso, a former lawmaker of President Nicolas Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV, letters in Spanish), was on Friday elected as the president of the National Electoral Council for the next seven years.

The 60-year-old lawyer has been named as the head of the institution a day after the ruling-party dominated National Assembly designated him as one of the five commissioners who would organize the next presidential elections scheduled for 2024, among other duties.

Amoroso had been officiating as the comptroller general of the country since 2018, when he was appointed on the post by the Constituent National Assembly, a body that solely consisted of the ruling party’s leaders, who wielded undisputed power for three years despite the opposition alleging the entity to be fraudulent and most of the international community refusing to recognize it.

So far, the comptroller genera’s office has not announced who would replace Amoroso, even as the institution has faced criticism in recent years for disqualifying opposition leaders from public office, the most recent case being that of Maria Corina Machado, a hopeful for next year’s presidential polls, who was banned from contesting in late June.

The electoral council’s leadership consists of two other pro-government figures: retired military officer Carlos Quintero – elected as the vice-president – and Rosalba Gil, who had been working as parliamentary secretary since 2021 and now has been named the president of the national electoral registry commission.

The two remaining members are lawyers Aime Nogal – a leader from opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Era) who was appointed as the president-designate of the political participation and financing commission – and Juan del Pino, another dissident, would also be another commissioner of the council.

“We feel proud to have the most reliable electoral system in the world,” Amoroso proclaimed, after announcing the leadership elected in the first meeting of the council.

He said that they had agreed to visit the regional offices of the council in the 23 states of the country, while the working-groups of the body will be announced next week. EFE

hp/ia

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