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The Venezuelan opposition chose popular favorite María Corina Machado as their joint presidential candidate, but her candidacy did not go through.
The next candidate also had to be changed, and the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who leads the opinion polls by far, took his place.
Venezuelans seem ready to vote for anyone who brings change to the country. González Urrutia is a rather unknown figure.
People’s favorite too the nomination was denied. So the people vote for him.
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, 61, clung to power by dishonest means years ago. He has resorted to dirty play to ensure his victory also in the upcoming presidential elections on July 28.
This time, even that might not be enough.
Opposition chose the brilliant “iron lady” María Corina Machadobut he has been convicted with an obviously political decision to a 15-year ban.
Engineer Machado, 56, was replaced by a doctor of history Corina Yoris, 80. However, Yoris’s candidacy could not be confirmed by the deadline – apparently due to a malfunction of the election authority’s website. We barely had time to get a former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia74.
González Urrutia is a rather unknown figure. Still, he leads Maduro in most in opinion polls overwhelmingly, roughly 60-20.
So it seems that Venezuelans are ready to vote for anyone who brings change to the country.
The face of its change belongs to Machado, a value and economic liberal. That’s what González Urrutia says too. The official candidate is only an intermediary for the will of the people.
Power the change would make waves around the world. Venezuela has of all countries largest proven oil reserves in a situation where the West is looking for ways to get rid of Russian energy. Currently, Venezuela is Russia’s most important ally in the Americas.
In addition, Venezuelans are driving a record-breaking migration of Americans to the United States. About 30 million people have fled the country a complete collapse of the economy up to seven million people abroad.
Venezuela was run aground by the corruption of the socialist party and the neglect of the oil industry. The unpopular Maduro has remained in power because the generals have remained behind him and the opposition has not previously been able to unite behind the same candidate.
The Socialist Party has led Venezuela for 25 years. If Maduro were to win these elections as well, his reign would be longer than that of his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chávezwho died of cancer at the age of 58 in 2013. The left-wing populist and nationalist ideology of the party still bears this name: Chavismo.
Now however, the opposition has a candidate who, by all accounts, will beat Maduro—unless the ruling party comes up with a last-minute way to reject González Urrutia’s candidacy, ban him from office, or postpone the election. According to news agencies, many experts fear this will happen.
“I think they would have already done that. If they wanted to knock us out of the game, they had the perfect opportunity, but they didn’t,” González Urrutia evaluate in an interview with the newspaper El País.
This close to the election, a rejection would be so harsh that it could turn Maduro’s key supporters in Latin America against him. He wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford that.
González Urrutia speculated to El País that the leftist presidents of the big neighboring countries, Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombia Gustavo Petrohave persuaded Maduro to allow his candidacy.
Surprises is certainly ahead, and the victory of the opposition cannot be claimed to be probable under any circumstances.
However, there seems to be some kind of genuine possibility.
While the government persecutes its opponents, harnesses the media to drum up its message and even closes inns and street food stalls that served opposition leader Machadoelection vote counting in Venezuela has been considered relatively reliable.
It has been possible because the opposition in Venezuela has got its people to the polling stations to monitor the counting of votes, pointed out Political scientist at Miami Dade College José Vicente Carrasquero On the Americas Quarterly magazine podcast.
If this were the case this time as well, Maduro’s hope would rest on the fact that citizens hit by the economic crisis would not be able to believe in change and the opposition would not be able to inspire enough people to move. The ruling party certainly machinates and bribes loyal supporters to the urn in droves.
If Maduro were to lose, the regime would surely tamper with the results, evaluated Researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank Ryan C. Berg and Alexandra Winkler. That would mean the worst election robbery ever.
“But if the theft became sufficiently blatant and brazen, it could destroy Maduro’s hold from chavismo and causing the administration’s elite to worry about their future in six new years under him,” Berg and Winkler wrote in their commentary.
An alarming sign of Maduro’s intentions came when at the end of May, Venezuela canceled the invitation of EU election observers.
Apparently, the invitations from the UN, the African Union, the Brics countries and the US-based NGO Carter Center are still valid.
When Maduro sealed his position in the 2013 election after Chávez’s death, his winning percentage the opposition From Henrique Capriles was spotty 50.62–49.12 but known to be real.
The opposition won the 2015 parliamentary elections by a landslide. That time, however, the ruling party avoided its defeat by establishing a parallel institution to the parliament in the new elections, which the opposition boycotted in protest. The same trick could hardly be resorted to in the case of the president.
In 2018, Maduro secured his second term in show elections, which the opposition again boycotted after their most popular candidates were rejected. Therefore, the majority of American and European countries interpreted that Maduro lost his right to the office of president when his previous term ended in January 2019.
Foreign powers recognized the president of the parliament, the opposition, as the country’s temporary leader Juan Guaidónand the United States imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil exports.
However, international pressure changed almost nothing, and over time the Western countries switched the stick to the carrot. Last fall, the U.S. lifted sanctions in exchange for holding free elections—though in April it reinstated them.
If Maduro would lose the election and would not be able to credibly falsify the results, most experts believe he will retreat with only some kind of amnesty agreement under his arm.
So far, no such thing has been negotiated, and the opposition’s commitment to protecting Maduro from prosecution would not necessarily save him.
Maduro is being investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and has been indicted in the United States criminal charges of harnessing cocaine smuggling as a weapon against the United States.
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