Venezuelan Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, 74, was completely unknown just a month ago. On July 28, the former diplomat will face on the ballot President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and is seeking a new six-year term. On Sunday, April 21, parties of the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD), "unanimously" confirmed Gonzalez's candidacy.
Maria Corina Machado, who was very active for months and won the PUD primaries but was banned from running, returned to the campaign trail on Thursday. The photo of the day shows Machado surrounded by a small crowd of supporters in the western town of Chabasquen, holding a portrait of Gonzalez. On the loudspeakers around her, the campaign slogan "Todo el mundo con Edmundo" ("All the world with Edmundo") was sung to a salsa tune. "We are united and strong," Machado repeated.
Gonzalez, for his part, has no intention of traveling around the country. "Maria Corina is doing it very well," he told journalist Isnardo Bravo on Thursday. The unitary candidate keeps repeating that she is "the legitimate leader of the opposition." However, he added: "I am not the candidate of Maria Corina. I am the candidate of unity." For the past three days, the surprise candidate has been giving numerous interviews and posting videos on social media.
Soothing speech
A career diplomat, Gonzalez was ambassador to Algeria in the early 1990s, then to Argentina between 1998 and 2002 when Hugo Chavez, the historic leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, came to power. Then, like many of his colleagues, he was sidelined. An active but discreet member of the opposition coalition, he had never run for elected office and had no plans to do so.
On March 25, the deadline for registering candidates for the presidential election, the PUD decided to register the name of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as a "provisional" candidate to counter the maneuvers of the Chavista government, which had disqualified Machado and prevented the registration of her chosen replacement, Corina Yoris. Venezuelan law allows parties to change the name of a registered candidate up to 10 days before the election.
After days of difficult internal negotiations, the PUD announced that its provisional candidate had become its unitary candidate. The Platform's unity – even if only on the surface – has delighted opposition voters. "Political leaders have put the good of the country before everything else and abandoned their ambitions in favor of a candidate who didn't want to be one," wrote economist José Toro Hardy. "A wind of change is blowing across Venezuela."
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