The Venezuelan opposition seeks to rebuild itself after the trauma of the candidacies

In broad sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, enormous discontent is palpable with the unilateral decision of Manuel Rosales, the current governor of the State of Zulia and leader of Un Nuevo Tiempo. Rosales gave the surprise on Monday night by breaking ranks on his own and presenting his candidacy for the presidential elections on July 28. The opposition consensus forged by María Corina Machado around the academic Corina Yoris, his replacement, had collapsed. At the last minute of the deadline given by the National Electoral Council, the social democratic leader Enrique Márquez also managed to run.

This episode, which has been repeated many times in the past within the different factions of the opposition camp, has fallen like a fragmentary grenade. Machado, in one of her public speeches in her last days, was clear about this: “There are many people who feel that they have been made fun of. This must be assumed, what just happened cannot be minimized. Betrayals and disappointments become learning to continue.”

The Electoral Power denied access to the digital key to Yoris - the candidate that the democratic alliance chose to continue Machado's disqualified leadership - but accepted it from Rosales, a moderate leader who has called for the end of the elections. international sanctions and that, as governor of the State of Zulia, he has institutional relations with the Miraflores Palace.

Rosales and his followers defend that this path was the only possible one to allow the democratic forces to continue on the electoral route. Those around Un Nuevo Tiempo consider that in recent days all possible options to comply with the mandate of the primaries, in which Machado swept last October, were exhausted.

Rosales himself has even stated that he would be willing to renounce his nomination. “Look for a candidate who will overcome the obstacles and obstacles that the Government puts in place and I will give you the candidacy,” he said at a rally of his party held at El Palacio de los Eventos, in Maracaibo, in what appears to be the first act of his candidacy. “Look for it, but don't defame, don't wage dirty war,” he asked.

The governor has the support of some minority sectors of the opposition, linked to academia and dissident Chavismo, who have enormous resistance to Machado's leadership. These factions, also far from Leopoldo López's postulates, insist on the idea of ​​participating in Chavismo's electoral events at any cost and staying away from protests or street violence. Rosales has also received the support of Fuerza Vecinal, an organization that controls the municipalities of eastern Caracas, dominated by the opposition, but criticized by some sectors for its alleged links with Chavismo.

Both Rosales and Un Nuevo Tiempo and Fuerza Vecinal are members of the Unitary Platform, and therefore, they are supposed to be committed to democratic change and the restoration of the spirit of the National Constitution. Omar Barboza, executive secretary of the Platform, also belongs to Un Nuevo Tiempo. But in a country accustomed to disappointments, distrust increases every day and what happened is seen as a compromise between Rosales and Maduro to whitewash the already highly questioned electoral event.

Unlike Yoris, it is very unlikely that Rosales, a politician with his own objectives and very interested in not losing his relations with the Government, will agree to the terms of María Corina Machado, the leadership on which the desire for change now revolves. change.

In the end, among so many struggles, the National Electoral Council allowed the Unitary Platform to present its candidacy and the diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, close to Vente Venezuela, was admitted as a “temporary solution.” The possibilities of changing the name on the electoral card are open until ten days before the vote, so in the coming weeks the opposition will debate how to proceed.

Although he has not been able to hide his fury with what happened, Machado has asked his followers for “a lot of serenity and firmness” and did not want to distance himself from the story of the electoral route. His words will mark the next decisions and, thanks to his enormous popular influence, they will define the role of the opposition in elections that, until now, Madurismo refuses to play.

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