Images of President Nicolás Maduro dominate Venezuela’s electoral ballot

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CARACAS (AP) — If something seems certain in the upcoming presidential elections on July 28 in Venezuela, it is that voters will have no difficulty placing President Nicolas Maduro on the ballot.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) published the electoral ballot with the photos, names and signs of the parties that support the 10 presidential candidates. The winner will govern during the 2025-2030 six-year term.

Maduro, who aspires to be re-elected for a third six-year term, occupies a privileged place on the ballot as contemplated by electoral law based on previous results. The image of the president is repeated 13 times, one next to the other in the first three lines.

Among the parties that support Maduro, the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) stands out, intervened by the Supreme Court of Justice in August of last year. In addition to the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the president has the support of 11 other forces, including the dozen members of the coalition of left-wing parties called the Great Patriotic Pole.

The Supreme Court of Justice, which critics say is controlled by the ruling party, suspended the leadership of the PCV, the oldest in the country and which in recent years joined Maduro’s critics. The Court in turn appointed an intervening board of directors that is in the hands of dissidents who have been linked to the government.

Throughout its history, like other Venezuelan political organizations, the PCV has suffered several divisions, but according to its former leaders it had never been the subject of such an action by a judicial procedure.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has made similar decisions against the country’s four largest opposition parties – Democratic Action (AD), Primero Justicia (PJ), Voluntad Popular and the Christian Social Copei – as well as other small opposition organizations that have since divided. that some factions ended up allied with the government.

The other nine candidates, many of them almost unknown to most Venezuelans, are scattered in about the remaining 65% of the ballot space presented by the electoral authorities.

“Like not seeing Maduro, the difficult thing will be to distinguish the candidate from María Corina (Machado) on the card. He is surrounded by, what do they call them, scorpions,” said Fernando Marrero, a 64-year-old merchant before bursting into laughter, alluding to the candidate of the so-called Democratic Unitary Platform, the main opposition coalition.

Former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, 74, emerged in April as Maduro’s main opponent after the candidacy of opposition leader Machado, winner of more than 92% of the votes in the October primaries, was blocked. Machado was disqualified from holding public office for 15 years just after announcing her intention to participate in the primaries.

González Urrutia was originally registered as a provisional candidate waiting for Machado to reverse his disqualification, but that possibility was cut short by the Supreme Court. The application of his first alternative was also blocked for reasons still unknown.

Machado has continued to tour the country to promote González’s candidacy.

Also prominent on the ballot are several opposition dissidents, who are among the fiercest critics of their former leaders. At the head of parties that were judicially intervened are Luis Eduardo Martínez (AD and Copei, four other parties) and José Brito (PJ and three more parties).

Lawyer Antonio Ecarri has the support of three parties, including Avanzada Progresista, whose elected board headed by former presidential candidate Henri Falcón was unknown to the electoral authority.

The chances of victory for Martínez, Brito and Ecarri are remote, as are the other five remaining candidates: the evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci, the former opposition legislator Enrique Márquez, the former mayor of Caracas Claudio Fermín, the former political prisoner Daniel Ceballos and the comedian Benjamin Rausseo. With the exception of Rausseo (2%), the others add up to 1% or less in the different voting intention surveys.