By: Staff Writer
June 18, 2024
Venezuelan Presidential elections are set for July 28, but in previous elections it would have been easy to call incumbent president, Nicholas Maduro, the odds on favourite to win. But, things have changed, despite the main opposition leader in the country being banned by the supreme court from holding any political office.
Edmundo Gonzalez, Venezuelan opposition candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, is polling at 50 percent of the vote heading into next month’s election. This is more than any of Maduro’s previous opponents have ever polled this close to a presidential election.
The 74 year old Gonzalez is backed by opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who has been seen campaigning in support of Gonzalez’s bid to unseat Maduro.
The opposition has said Machado’s ban is illegal and an attempt by Maduro’s government, which has overseen a deep economic crisis in the country, to tamp down support for the opposition in the July 28 presidential election.
Standing on a large truck bed, Gonzalez and Machado spoke to a chanting crowd of about 3,000 in La Victoria, Gonzalez’s hometown in central Aragua state.
Gonzalez said he will ensure political movements can exercise their rights under the constitution, urging voters to imagine a country “where the president does not insult or see his adversaries as enemies.”
Machado, a former lawmaker, won the opposition’s independently run presidential primary last October with more than 90 percent of the votes despite the government announcing a 15-year ban on her running for office just days after she formally entered the race in June.
For now, Maduro, who has been in office for more than a decade, is campaigning hard to win re-election, denouncing the opposition as “fascist” traitors and puppets of the United States. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan electorate is poised to vote overwhelmingly for Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, an unassuming retired career diplomat who has become the opposition’s “accidental candidate.” Gonzalez is running as a replacement for Maria Corina Machado, the opposition primary winner banned by the government from holding office; he has the backing of Machado as well as a broad coalition of political parties.
The regime could still find a way to disqualify Gonzalez, just as it did for Machado and her first choice as an alternate candidate. It could also try to avert scrutiny of the election by disinviting credible international observers, as it has already done with the European Union. But momentum is now building toward the election on July 28, with politicians crisscrossing the country, parties and civic groups organizing to monitor the vote and voters eager to cast a ballot in Venezuela’s first meaningful presidential election in 11 years.
Seven million Venezuelans have migrated in the past few years to escape Maduro’s authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement, and most of those who remain are desperate to restore democracy and economic growth.