MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela: Foreign press accused of dirty campaign to cry “foul”

Amoroso is the official entrusted with announcing the elections' outcome

While Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) Chairman Elvis Amoroso denounced that Western media outlets were behind a campaign seeking to taint next Sunday's presidential elections, Argentine reporter Jorge Pizarro of Buenos Aires' Radio Rivadavia was denied access into the country upon landing at Caracas' Simón Bolívar International Airport, from where he was deported via Panama after over six hours in detention.

Amoroso insisted that no Venezuelan citizen duly registered to vote would be allowed to and ruled out any possibility of the polls being called off. He also argued that western outlets were already plotting to cry “foul” after what he expects to be a victory for the incumbent Nicolás Maduro.

Pizarro, who arrived at Maiquetía -the area in the State of La Guayra where the Airport is located- said his passport was seized as he was kept for over six hours in a detention facility where he was even denied a glass of water to take some medication or kept from going to the lavatories. “For six hours they didn't even give me a glass of water. I had to take a medication, and they wouldn't let me. I was not allowed to go to the bathroom,” he said.

“I asked them why they were asking me so many questions and they almost put me in jail, and they told me that they were the ones asking the questions. That's when I understood what was happening. From then on they interrogated me 10 times, took 14 photos of me in different scenarios, withheld my passport, took me to an isolation and deportation office, and made me record a video,” Pizarro explained. He also said his cell phones and luggage were confiscated.

In the end, Pizarro was told that he would be deported for failing to meet the requirements to enter the country.

Italian journalist Barbara Schiavulli also denounced this week that a group of international journalists were not allowed to enter Venezuela to cover the presidential elections. Schiavulli said in a video that went viral on social media that after a positive response from local authorities regarding her coverage of the July 28 elections, she and the others were turned down as soon as they provided the details of their flights and accommodations in the country. Many reporters said they would be covering the Venezuelan elections from places in other countries along the Venezuelan border.

Amoroso is the official entrusted with announcing the elections' outcome. The image of this 60-year-old Chavist lawyer saying that opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia would be succeeding Maduro is hard to imagine, political analysts in Caracas agree.