Venezuelan Opposition Registers Candidates for Presidential Election

At the close of the registration period, the opposition candidates for this year’s Venezuelan presidential elections have now been decided. Manuel Rosales, governor of the State of Zulia, and Enrique Marquez, former rector of the National Electoral Center, will be the opposition candidates to Nicolas Maduro for the presidential elections of next July 28.

After the disqualification of the opposition unity candidate, Maria Corina Machado, by the Venezuelan justice system, the unity platform had bet on a third person, Corina Yoris. However, when the deadline to register candidates for the elections closed yesterday, the electoral authority prevented the registration of Yoris, a fact that has been denounced as a new abuse by the Venezuelan government.

In view of this situation, and in the absence of confirmation of the support or not of Maria Corina Machado and her united opposition platform to either of the two registered opposition candidates, the political panorama for the elections scheduled for four months from now is clear. However, complaints against Nicolas Maduro for alleged persecution of dissidents continue.

A historic opponent of Chavismo

Manuel Rosales is a historic opponent of Chavismo in Venezuela. In fact, in 2002 he signed, on behalf of the governors, the decree appointing Pedro Carmona as acting president, after the coup d’état against Hugo Chavez. To justify his support of the coup perpetrators, the opposition politician assured that it was “a moment of confusion and that he did it with the best of intentions for the welfare of the country”.

In spite of this episode, Manuel Rosales’ political career continued and, in 2006, he was a presidential candidate, facing Hugo Chavez in the polls. In that contest, the opposition candidate obtained four million votes, 36% of the votes cast, insufficient to defeat the ruling party, which won with more than 63% of the votes and seven million votes.

Subsequently exiled in Peru, Rosales returned six years later to Venezuela, in 2015, in the context of the negotiation between his party and the government, already under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro. Despite this, he spent a few months under house arrest. Since 2021, he has been the governor of the state of Zulia, from where he has continued to confront the Venezuelan government.

Marquez, the moderate option

For his part, Enrique Marquez is the most moderate option in opposition to the current government of Nicolas Maduro. Former rector until 2023 of the Venezuelan electoral body, the former deputy to the National Assembly is 60 years old and has a long political trajectory.

In 2006 he joined Manuel Rosales in his presidential campaign against Hugo Chavez. Today, he fits into the same party over which Rosales presides, where he is part of its more moderate wing. In 2018, he was suspended by his party for supporting the presidential elections of that year, which the opposition denounced for alleged fraud by Nicolas Maduro.

Although he is assumed to have a smaller electoral base, Marquez has stated that he does not have the support of Maria Corina Machado and her unitary platform. “It has nothing to do with my postulation”, he has pointed out, highlighting that he presents himself as “what I am: an independent politician”.

Likewise, he qualified as “regrettable” that the registration of Corina Yoris was prevented, although part of the opposition denounced her for not making public her criticisms of the electoral bodies.

Machado’s unitary platform

For now, neither Manuel Rosales nor Enrique Marquez are candidates supported by the united opposition platform, led by the disqualified Maria Corina Machado, who won the primary elections held a few months ago by the opposition.

After the Venezuelan justice system prevented her candidacy, Machado bet on veteran Corina Yoris, a prestigious academic, of liberal ideology, in whom the united opposition platform had placed its hopes to defeat the ruling party.

Yoris, 80 years old, has not held political office in the past, but has a long career as an academic and philosopher in her country. However, at the last minute the electoral authority prevented her registration for the July elections, citing “technical problems” in the system.

Thus, the unitary platform will have to decide whether to boycott the elections or give its support to one of the two opposition candidates who did manage, in extremis, to register: Manuel Rosales or Enrique Marquez, both from the same party, Nuevo Tiempo.

Diplomatic clash with Colombia

In view of these events, Colombia made a statement through a message from its acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo. The Colombian official wrote that “Colombia expresses its concern for the recent events occurred on the occasion of the registration of some presidential candidacies, particularly regarding the difficulties faced by majority sectors of the opposition”, in explicit reference to the united opposition platform and the Vente Venezuela party of Maria Corina Machado and Corina Yoris.

Likewise, Foreign Affairs Colombia expressed that this fact “could affect the confidence of some sectors of the international community in the transparency and competitiveness of the electoral process that will culminate with the presidential elections of next July 28”.

The Venezuelan response has been immediate and has come from the Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil. In addition to rejecting these affirmations of the Colombian government, the Venezuelan minister pointed out that Colombia is meddling in internal affairs. “Pushed by the need to please the designs of the U.S. State Department, the Colombian Foreign Ministry makes a false step and commits an act of gross interference in matters that only concern Venezuelans,” Gil said on social networks.

Likewise, the Venezuelan foreign minister assured that President Maduro has always ensured the righteousness of democracy in Colombia. “Venezuela has always been respectful of the complex political processes in Colombia, even in times of violence and great divisions,” Gil recalled.