Corina Yoris, the renowned 80-year-old academic who will face Nicolás Maduro at the polls

An academic with professional credentials, unknown in the political debate, devoid of legends and with a sufficient dose of institutional and democratic commitment.

With the designation of Corina Yoris as an alternative candidate to María Corina Machado, disqualified by Chavismo, the factions of the Venezuelan opposition seem to have found the desired point of consensus to give continuity to this year's electoral initiative, without losing the political mandate of the primary election on October 22.

Yoris, who was part of the group of civil society personalities that made up the opposition National Primary Commission in which Machado swept with more than 90% of the votes, on October 22, entered a few days ago with his own chair to the Venezuelan Academy of Language.

The appointment of Yoris as an alternative candidate produced an initial surprise in public opinion, after hours of conjecture and investigations, given that she is a person little known among the population.

Progressively, however, a feeling of optimism and approval spread among many spokesmen of the Venezuelan opposition upon hearing the news.

Little or nothing has been said about his inexperience in the political field: such a circumstance, surrounded by Machado's command and national volunteers, is appreciated rather as an endorsement among observers and politicians.

Born in Caracas, Corina Yoris Villasana (1944) has a degree in Philosophy and Letters and a doctorate in History at the Andrés Bello Catholic University, an institution where she received the UCAB Order distinction, and the Federico Riu Philosophical Research Award.

She has also been a professor at the Metropolitan University.

Corina Yoris speaks during a press conference, this March 22 in Caracas.Gaby Oraa (REUTERS)

She has worked as a professor of Logic and Argumentation Theory at the University of Salamanca, in Spain, and has a master's degree in Latin American Literature at the Simón Bolívar University, in Caracas.

A full-time teacher, she has been president of the Venezuelan Society of Philosophy and member of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Network and the Ibero-American Society of Philosophy.

Yoris has also carried out visible academic work in Mexico in the field of logic and philosophy of science, and she is a member of the International Etienne Gibson Society.

Yoris's academic and professional merits were praised by María Corina Machado herself, who at all times wanted to offer public opinion, with her at her side, a solution for continuity with respect to her own efforts: “We have found a person of my total trust, honorable, that emerged from the heart of the Democratic Unitary Platform.

“Everyone knows that my fight is not over.”

Then, to offer everyone the certainty that he continues to lead the campaign process, he added: “The law establishes that up to 10 days before the election there can be a substitution of a candidate.

So here we are going to fight until the last day.”

Yoris's name, which has unleashed a contained euphoria in certain sectors of the opposition, must be accompanied, according to some related sources, by other possible volunteer candidates, so that they are registered on the list of candidates and fill their vacancy in case that the National Electoral Council (CNE) fabricates another argument to inhibit his candidacy.

The secrecy, on this and other issues, within María Corina Machado's campaign committee, however, is completely insurmountable.

In the country's information and political environment there is speculation about other names, but, between the legal harassment of the Chavista Government, the lack of trust and conflicting interests in the opposition, and the reluctance to confuse the population with unconfirmed hypotheses, it has impossible to identify them.

Another name that is heard is Teresa Albanes, an academic with extensive experience in civil participation in recent years, president of the Electoral Commission of the Democratic Unity Table in its primary elections against Chavismo in 2011. By accepting the delicate political assignment of the moment, Yoris commented: “Venezuela is going towards a path of transition and we have to travel it together.

We are all needed right now.

God gave us women to give birth.

We are giving birth to the country, but we need the support of the hand of man […].

"It's all of us, it's Venezuela, that Venezuela that wants to recover its freedom and dignity."

Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on

Facebook

and

X

, or in our

weekly newsletter

.