Poll Reveals Clear Lead for Opposition Candidate Edmundo Gonzalez in Venezuela

A poll points towards the clear victory of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in Venezuela. The Venezuelan pollster Meganalisis published the results of a survey showing a wide lead of the opposition candidate over Nicolas Maduro for the presidential elections, which are to be held on July 28.

It should be recalled that Gonzalez Urrutia was the candidate who finally, after major setbacks, managed to register the opposition Unitary Platform, after the disqualification of Maria Corina Machado, leader of the movement, and the impossibility of presenting her substitute, Corina Yoris.

The study also reveals that Maria Corina Machado is the best valued politician in the country, with 75.9 percent of acceptance among Venezuelans.

Only opposition candidacy with options in Venezuela

The survey shows that Edmundo Gonzalez would obtain 32.4 percent of the votes, against 11.2 percent given to the official candidacy of Nicolas Maduro. With the withdrawal of Manuel Rosales, the candidates running for the Venezuelan presidency are nine opposition candidates and Maduro’s official candidate.

In spite of this apparent fragmentation, the only opposition candidate with real possibilities of winning is Edmundo Gonzalez, a 74 year old former diplomat who is seeking to bring together a large part of the opposition vote and address the social weariness over the situation the country is going through.

The survey also shows that as of today, 33.1 percent said they did not know for whom they would vote and 19.3 percent said they would not vote for any of the ten candidates. A surprising fact is that 53.2 percent of the participants in the survey said they did not know the opposition candidate Gonzalez.

On the other hand, the candidacy of Edmundo Gonzalez recently received the support of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, an old faction of the non-Marxist Communist Party, which long ago separated from the Chavista ruling party in Venezuela.

Overwhelming support for Maria Corina Machado

The study also asked the hypothetical question of who would vote for opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, had she been able to run. In this impossible scenario, the result is even more overwhelming. 75.4 percent of those polled said they would vote for Machado, against 8.6 percent who would vote for Nicolas Maduro.

The same result is seen in terms of trust values. In this framework, Machado obtains 75.9 percent of support, against a scarce 6.1 percent that trusts the current president, Maduro. The survey also shows that 91.8 percent of those polled think that Machado should continue mobilizing and participating in the campaign until the elections.

Maria Corina Machado was a deputy in the Venezuelan Assembly between 2011 and 2014. She is previously remembered for her support of the coup d’état of Pedro Carmona in 2002, acts for which she was tried and convicted. She was later made a minister by President Hugo Chavez.

Her participation in acts against the government has been constant throughout the years. In 2004 she managed to collect almost three million signatures for a national recall referendum that finally failed against Chavez, then head of state.

High capacity for popular mobilization

In this regard, the massive rally that took place last Friday, April 26, in Turen (a municipality south of Barquisimeto), was an expression of the mobilization capacity of the politician with the highest social valuation among Venezuelans.

The once-important bastion of the ruling party, with electoral victories above 70 percent, showed its support to the disqualified politician, who is leading a tour through several cities of the country in support of candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.

“We are facing the challenge of betting on the recovery of Venezuela. Nobody can be indifferent to the situation of millions of our compatriots, a poverty that expands while inflation persists and the currency loses real value, health and education services in regression that accentuate inequality, decadent water and electricity services that damage daily life and impede economic growth, families separated by massive emigration even at the risk of their own existence,” said Machado in her speech to the gathered people.

The politician affirmed in front of the audience that “we bet for a Venezuela of all, where nobody feels fear of being persecuted for their ideas,” stressing that the political movement she leads is “committed to carry out a transition in which the freedom of political prisoners is guaranteed, along with the return of exiles (…) and the adaptation of the public powers so that their independence prevails.”