The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado announced this Friday that Corina Yoris, philosopher and university professor, will be the candidate who represents them in the Presidential election of July 28th for act To Nicolas Maduro.
“He is a person of my utmost trust, honorable, who will carry out this procedure with the support and trust of everyone.”the Liberal leader said as he announced the name of Yoris, who was a member of the commission that organized the October 2023 opposition primaries in which Machado won. “Now we start together. We are a great team.”
“At this moment I not only feel proud, but I also feel an extraordinary obligation to the people, the citizens, María Corina and this vote of confidenceto lay down in me the challenge that she has,” said Yoris, a philosophy and humanities graduate and doctor of history.
Experts agree that Machado, who has an approval rating of 70% in some polls, has high transfer power, which could boost the candidacy of whoever replaces her.
The application period for the elections began on March 21st and ends on Monday, March 25th.
Elections in Venezuela: The opposition has two approved ballots
After a kind of “raid” by the electoral authorities, the opposition only has two approved partisan ballot papers: that of the MUD, the old alliance replaced by the current Unity Platform (PUD), and that of Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), of Manuel Rosales, who ran against Hugo Chávez in the 2006 presidential election, was and is in exile in Peru also now governor of the oil-producing state of Zulia (west).
This means: only two candidates, which can also be rejected and would have no possibility of replacement. Registration takes place via a system that the opposition also did not have access to on Friday.
Maduro’s supporters have gone to the CNE to nominate his name, but he has not yet appeared before the electoral body to formalize his candidacy.
The first to register were politicians who describe themselves as anti-Chavist, but whom the opposition accuses of collaborating with Chavismo. AFP