After the announcement of the so-called unitary platform in which various political organizations identified with opposition extremism converge, on the call for internal elections to choose the opposition candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, the Copei party reported this Monday that it will not be part of this proposal.
For Juan Carlos Alvarado, national secretary general of Copei, he ratified the refusal to participate “after not receiving invitations to participate in the construction of the regulations and schedule of a possible primary election.”
“Since November 2022, we have publicly reported our intention to participate in this consultation process to prepare the regulations and schedule,” said Alvarado, who questioned this process.
“The least that this instance wants is for there to be unity,” he stated and reiterated that said process, “more than seeming like a primary, it seems like an internal election between those who are part” of the so-called Unitary Platform, which is known as the G4 in reference to the four parties that dominate the decisions of this coalition such as Ramos Allup’s AD, Primero Justicia, Voluntad Popular and Un Nuevo Tiempo.
Those who say they are going
Until now, various names have emerged as opposition pre-candidates, including leaders of organizations associated with the G4 opposition extremism, such as Carlos Ocariz, Juan Pablo Guanipa and Henrique Capriles Radonski for Primero Justicia.
Added to these are Carlos Prosperi of the Acción Democrática (AD) dissident faction under the tutelage of Henry Ramos Allup; Manuel Rosales of the Un Nuevo Tiempo party; while Popular Will looks at Juan Guaidó, who until January of this year was part of the failed parallel government plan orchestrated by the extinct US administration of Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Delsa Solórzano has also decided to join this competition supported by the Encuentro Ciudadano party, a political organization founded by the former deputy after her departure from Un Nuevo Tiempo.
Candidates without primaries
Due to Copei’s refusal to participate in these primaries, other opposition parties that have raised the possibility of not being part of this process are those brought together in the so-called “Democratic Alliance”, which have in common that they have separated from the adventure of the “government interim» and the promotion of abstentionism maintained by the members of the so-called G4.
First Venezuela with José Brito and AD with Bernabé Gutiérrez are the names that have emerged from some of the members of this alliance that since 2020 assumed the electoral path and describes the process promoted by extremists as exclusive.
disgruntled extremists
But this veto of the primary electoral process of the so-called Unitary Platform was joined by previous allies of extremism who have become fierce critics of what they call the “G4 dictatorship”, such as the former governor of the Bolívar state, Andrés Velásquez de la Causa. R and María Corina Machado of Vente Venezuela, who have announced their candidacies and have emphasized that they will not be part of the proposed primaries.
“It’s not a rooster’s bottle”
To this long list of applicants that does not include other so-called “independent” candidates, the name of Benjamín Rausseo, a renowned Venezuelan comedian who has made public his intention to run for the presidency again, has been added, an announcement that as he says “is not a bottle of rooster».
Rausseo, better known as “Er Conde del Guácharo”, was contacted by the commission of the Unitary Platform in charge of the primaries to invite him to participate in his primary process, for which the comedian already appointed a representative to discuss this possibility with the leadership of the G4.
CNE waits for response
Former deputy Solórzano announced on February 8 that this Wednesday, February 15, they will announce “the date and schedule for holding the primaries” to choose a “unitary candidate” in 2024.
In the midst of this maelstrom of announcements of candidacies in the opposition sector and promises to announce the date for this primary process, the National Electoral Council has offered its support for carrying it out without receiving a response to date from the promoters of These primaries have been ruled out by the first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, who revealed that given the impossibility of an agreement between the oppositions, the candidate will be elected by “consensus.”
«I say it and I maintain it; there will not be primaries, what’s more, there are already only two names to be the candidate. They are going to remember me”, he said and has been emphatic in pointing out that while the various factions of the opposition “fight” to choose a candidate, Chavismo is preparing its structures to guarantee victory in the presidential elections.
“If the CNE says that the elections are in April, we are ready to guarantee a great victory,” he said.
