The opposition is presenting a united candidacy with Edmundo González at the head following the disqualification of Maria Corina Machado. Nicolás Maduro, for his part, hopes to extend his mandate for another term.
Venezuela celebrates this Sunday some presidential election in which Nicolas Maduro seeks to establish himself in power with a third term, although Most of the surveys give the victory to the opposition frontwho had to settle for introducing the former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as a candidate after Maria Corina Machadowinner of the primaries, out disqualified by the courts.
In addition to the president’s party, which hopes to ‘hit the table’, there are nine other candidates, including Unitary Platform González, who has the greatest chance of victory, since the polls do not give the other eight candidates more than 2% of the votes.
If the opposition were to win the elections, they would arrive at the Miraflores Palace 25 years after the victory of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolutionwho ruled for 14 years. Chavez enjoyed broad popular support in most elections but had to face Several coup attempts in 2002when he even spent four days in prison.
Chavez was diagnosed with cancer and finally passed away in March 2013when Maduro, until then his vice president, took the reins of the country on an interim basis until the elections in mid-April. But Maduro is not Chavez, and in those elections he only won by a narrow margin of 1.5% over the opposition Henrique Capriles.
Considered by experts to be a “gray profile,” Maduro does not have the revolutionary baggage of Chavez, which, combined with the country’s economic and social crisis, has fostered the rise of dissidence.
Amnesty International has taken advantage of the run-up to the elections to warn of the “serious and massive” human rights violations taking place in Venezuela where, under the presidency of Maduro, “more than 25% of the population” has fled the country, according to the NGO, which denounces “dozens of arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances and torture” against dissidents.
The Barbados Agreement
Maduro’s presidency received a great setback after the 2018 elections, in which the president won with 67.8% of the votes against Henri Falcón (20.9%) but several countries around the world and even the European Union considered the elections “illegitimate”.
Following discrediting by part of the international community, in October 2023 the Barbados Agreement was signed with the opposition in which the conditions for the elections.
This pact – which led the United States to even lift some of its sanctions against Venezuela – covered the Guarantees for the participation of the opposition and the primary election processwhich, however, dissidents believe that Maduro has skipped some stages, especially the disqualification of María Corina Machado and the subsequent impossibility of registering Corina Yoris Villasana as a candidate for the Unitary Platform.
It is precisely at this point that the name of Edmundo González Urrutia comes to the fore, a former Venezuelan diplomat – ambassador to Algeria (1991-1993) and Argentina (1998-2002) – who has promised the release of political prisoners, economic recovery, the stabilization of a hugely devalued bolivar and the fight against inflation and insecurity.
Considered a centrist politician, González has expressed his support for public services and has always shown himself to beopen to consensus above partisan ideology. Regarding a possible victory in Sunday’s elections, always has advocated for a “negotiation” process for the transfer of powers from Maduro’s hands.
A PP delegation is expelled from Venezuela for not having official permission
A delegation of parliamentarians and senators of the PP have been expelled from Venezuela, after trying to enter the South American country without official permission.
According to the members of the delegation, they had been invited by the Venezuelan opposition as observers of Sunday’s elections. However, they did not have the relevant authorization. Despite this, they traveled to Caracas on Friday, knowing that their entry into the country would not be accepted. The same has happened with other delegations from other countries, also invited by the opposition.
Source: Eitb
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