CARACAS, Venezuela: With the opposition forced to discard its most popular election candidate, and then a proxy, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro seems set to reap the situation.
Opposition unity is now on the verge of crumbling ahead of July presidential elections as the 61-year-old Maduro is seeking a third term in power which would see him rule for a total of 18 years.
After convincing primary polls win in October 2023, 56-year-old liberal politician Maria Corina Machado emerged as a single figure to unite the opposition.
“The iron lady” as called by her supporters Machado has long been a fervent opponent of “Chavismo” — the brand of populist leftist ideology left behind by country’s late president Hugo Chavez.
However, accused of corruption, she was banned from public office for 15 years by courts loyal to Maduro. She always dismissed the charge as fabricated.
Machado kept campaigning and at the eleventh hour, she picked 80-year-old university professor Corina Yoris as her stand-in to present as a candidate to the national election council to avoid leaving the opposition without representation.
However, by the time the deadline ended on Monday, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) was unable to access the website to register Corina Yoris as a presidential candidate.
However, the governor of the oil-rich province of Zulia and a member of the PUD coalition, Manuel Rosales, managed to sign up last-minute in what he said was a last-ditch attempt to avoid the opposition from being left out of the election.
But he came under fire for being a candidate picked for his palatability to Maduro, which he fiercely denies.
“I was afraid that we would be left without a presidential candidate and that we would leave the field open for Maduro to stay in power for another six years,” Rosales told a rally on Wednesday.
Yoris later told media that Rosales was a “Judas” and slammed his “betrayal”. Machado, however, remained mum on his candidacy.
After the deadline had ended, the PUD did manage to enroll the name of Edmundo Gonzalez Urruti, a little-known former ambassador, as a “provisional” candidate who Machado now hopes she will be able to replace.
If she cannot, the opposition will have to throw its support behind either Gonzalez or Rosales.
“The smart thing now is not an opposition civil war, which only favors the candidacy of Nicolas Maduro,” said former elections chief Vicente Diaz. Another 10 candidates are listed, but are considered allies of Maduro.
