Venezuela Votes: Gonzalez Urrutia Challenges Maduro

Nicolas Maduro is running for a third consecutive term as president of Venezuela in presidential elections to be held on Sunday, July 28.

Maduro warned to “prepare” for his victory: “This will be the greatest and most beautiful victory in Venezuela’s electoral history” and will bring “hope and happiness.” And this time around, the right-wing coalition that abandoned the election in 2013 is presented by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is the “third candidate” after both opposition leader María Corina Machado and her successor Corina Yoris failed to file. Urrutia, 73, a former ambassador, thus leads the United Democratic Platform (PUD). However, behind Urrutia is Corina Machado, the real star of the radical opposition primaries, declared inadmissible for 15 years but, as the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto explains, “she is still at large despite her support for the 2002 coup d’état” against Hugo Chavez and the farcical interim government of Juan Guaidó and its calls for foreign intervention. And behind it is a program not much different from Milei’s in Argentina. For this reason, it is not certain that even those who are dissatisfied with Maduro will decide to vote for the opposition.

However, there are many concerns internationally about what could happen after the vote, especially if Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) does not win a majority: Maduro actually stated during the campaign that “the fate of the country depends on our victory on July 28,” adding: “If you don’t want a fratricidal civil war generated by fascists, we guarantee the greatest success in the electoral history of our nation,” predicting a “bloodbath” in the event of their defeat.

There will be 380,000 soldiers ensuring the electoral process, and there will be more than 600 observers, but not from the European Union because they are considered biased and not even from Brazil and Colombia, led by socialist leaders who decided not to send them over after Maduro criticized their electoral systems. The criticism came after Lula and Petro denounced the fact that too many candidates were excluded from the election race.

There are 21 million Venezuelans called to vote, excluding those living abroad (between 3 and 8 million), who will not be able to vote: only a few thousand received registration, given the strict rules imposed.