Elvis Amoroso, the Venezuelan official who declared strongman Nicolás Maduro the winner of July’s controversial presidential election, has not been seen in public in 10 weeks, triggering rumors on social media ranging from his arrest in Argentina and extradition to the U.S. to his detention by regime security forces fearing he had been planning to defect.
The close Maduro ally, appointed by the strongman to head of the National Electoral Council to ensure that the pivotal election went his way, has not been seen since Aug. 5, when he appeared in front of the Supreme Court to provide undisclosed documents supposedly showing that Maduro won nearly 52% of the vote.
The opposition claims that the investigation conducted by the regime-controlled Supreme Court was a farce aimed at hiding that opposition candidate Edmundo González was the real winner of the July 28th election with more than 68% of the vote, and that the figures announced by Amoroso on election night were fabricated and dictated to him by high-ranking regime officials.
Most members of the international community, including the United States, have either said that González won the election or have expressed skepticism about the results announced by Amoroso.
The latest set of rumors circulating in Venezuela have Amoroso being held at the Caracas military complex known as Fuerte Tiuna after security forces caught him making plans to leave the country. The situation is being compared to that of former oil czar Tareck El Aissami, who was forcefully removed from public view and kept under house arrest for months before eventually being charged with corruption in April.
The notion of hour arrest cannot be ruled out, said Antonio De La Cruz, president of the Washington-based think-tank Inter American Trends. “This is a guy that the regime can’t allow to leave,” De La Cruz said. “What is keeping Maduro in power is Amoroso’s claim that he won, but if he defects and takes that away, Maduro’s claim to legitimacy collapses.”
Amoroso is too important to allow him to leave Venezuela, because the regime has yet to present the official election tallies confirming that Maduro won the election despite repeated calls from the international community to do so. The support of his reelection victory relies heavily on Amoroso’s word and the pronouncement of the regime-controlled Supreme court.
If Amoroso were to appear in public and confess that he lied, it would have devastating consequences for Maduro, said Jose Vicente Carrasquero, professor of political science at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela, who currently resides in Hollywood, Florida.
“It would be simply explosive for these people (in the regime) if he was to suddenly appear here in Miami declaring to a television station or to the Miami Herald, ‘I was given a piece of paper to read and that was what I said on the night of the election,’” Carrasquero said.
The rumors are circulating amid an intense wave of repression that has led to the arrest of close to 2,000 dissidents and protesters who claimed that Maduro cheated during the election. Opposition and human-rights activists claim that some of those arrested are being tortured and the rest have been taken to the regime’s equivalent of concentration camps for “reeducation.”
Following the Aug. 5th proceedings at the Supreme Court, the president of the electoral council stopped appearing in the frequent televised events the regime holds and also stopped going to his office. His absence from public view for more than two months has not gone unnoticed in Venezuela, and eventually became a hot topic of discussions and speculation on social media.
The first wave of rumors had him being arrested in Argentina, a country that recently issued an arrest order against Maduro for human-rights violations, and that he was being extradited to the United States. Rumors soon followed had Amoroso “held against his will” at the presidential Palace of Miraflores.
While the early claims were quickly discredited by Venezuelan fact-checking organizations that determined there is no credible evidence for them, Amoroso’s whereabouts continue to be a mystery.
Ivan Simonovis, the Venezuelan police officer who served as intelligence chief for opposition leader Juan Guaidó when he was recognized by the U.S. as the legitimate president of Venezuela, said that even if Amoroso is allowed to move freely inside the South American country he would be under constant surveillance.
That is the fate of those who possess the most damaging secrets of the regime, surrounded by what are essentially prison guards, he said.
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