The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), Venezuela’s main opposition coalition, announced this Friday night that the unitary candidate who will face Nicolás Maduro on July 28 in the presidential elections will be former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, nominated by the Democratic Unity Roundtable party, replacing María Corina Machado, who is disqualified by the Chavista regime from holding public office.
The information was confirmed by Omar Barboza, general secretary of the PUD
“Venezuela and the democrats of the world, I want to give very good news to the people of Venezuela, the Democratic Unitary Platform has just unanimously approved the candidacy of Ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia as the unity candidate, supported by all factors,” said Barboza. , in statements to local media.
“Edmundo González Urrutia was originally registered as a provisional candidate and today he becomes a definitive candidate, he is already registered and his registration was admitted by the National Electoral Council and was not objected to by anyone,” added Barboza.
González Urrutia was provisionally nominated at the end of March amid obstruction to the candidacies of María Corina Machado and Corina Yoris.
The opposition alliance explained by then that it made this decision in order to stay “within the electoral route” and “continue fighting” to “guarantee the registration” of the “candidacy chosen by democratic factors.”
The governor of the state of Zulia, Manuel Rosales, Hugo Chávez’s rival in 2006, declined his candidacy, which he registered, also at the last minute, with his party Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), which is part of the coalition.
“It was a unanimous decision, we want to recognize Governor Manuel Rosales, he is a man who keeps his word (…) who decided to decline his candidacy to join the candidacy of Edmundo González Urrutia and the parties that are supporting Rosales did the same. himself,” Barboza celebrated.
The party led by Rosales will modify the nomination to support the former ambassador, whose deadline expires this Saturday.
The general secretary of the PUD said that “from now on, all of us who want change in the country have to join this candidacy and that soon we will give the basic guidelines to organize the campaign command and other activities.”
He also added that the opposition leader María Corina Machado will give her statement “at the time she considers appropriate.”
The anti-Chavista alliance had intensified its efforts in recent hours, with numerous closed-door meetings, to resolve discrepancies and determine a candidacy before Saturday, when the deadline for that candidate to appear on the ballot expires.
In parallel, the electoral schedule advances, not free of criticism from the opposition, which denounces arbitrariness in the registration of voters and advantage on the part of the Nicolás Maduro regime, which it accuses of “persecution” against opponents, some of them arrested in The last weeks.
With González Urrutia there are 13 candidates registered for the elections, in addition to Manuel Rosales who will renounce his candidacy, Luis Brito, Luis Ratti, Enrique Márquez, Benjamín Rausseo, Luis Eduardo Martínez, Daniel Ceballos, Antonio Ecarri, Juan Carlos Alvarado, Javier Bertucci , Claudio Fermín and Nicolás Maduro.
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