Opposition parties unite to safeguard election

SABANETA (AP):

Tears roll down the face of Tanyia Colmenares when she recalls her truncated dream of being a lawyer, which ended after two semesters in law school when she had to drop out to survive Venezuela’s complex crisis.

While she never got to defend a client in court, she has agreed to try to defend something far greater at the end of this month: Venezuela’s democracy.

Colmenares is among the thousands of supporters of Venezuela’s typically fractured opposition who have agreed to organise, mobilise and support voters during the highly anticipated July 28 presidential election.

The main opposition coalition is banking on their efforts, some led by parties and others formed organically, to get people to the polls to cast ballots as well as to deter government actors from intimidating or coercing voters.

The lack of a truly independent electoral authority makes such work critical for the alliance’s ability to verify or contest the outcome. The Unitary Platform coalition hopes the mere presence of large numbers of watchful voters outside polling places will neutralise some ruling party strategies that in the past left them without representatives inside the facilities, kept them away from vote counts and rendered them voiceless in the event of irregularities.

The western Venezuela city of Sabaneta is the cradle of Chavismo – the self-described socialist movement founded by the late President Hugo Chávez that has dominated Venezuela since the turn of the century. It is also where Colmenares is banding with nine other neighbours to promote the vote and ensure opposition supporters reach their polling place. They are ready to find voters rides, provide support should they encounter ruling-party checkpoints or hand out water or food if long lines form.

“Whether through social media, calls, text messages (or) personally, whatever way is easier for people, the important thing is to engage with the community and get the job done,” Colmenares, a stay-at-home mother of three, said after a neighbourhood group meeting earlier this month.

This month’s election is unlike any the ruling party has faced since Chávez was elected president in December 1998 and began transitioning Venezuela into what he described as the 21st century’s socialism.

Now led by Chávez’s heir, President Nicolás Maduro, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela is as unpopular as ever among many voters. Weak oil prices, corruption and economic mismanagement by the government plunged the country into a crisis that has lasted more than 11 years. Young people have had to give up college dreams, children have gone hungry and millions have emigrated.

Economic sanctions imposed last decade failed to topple Maduro, as the United States and other governments hoped, but they contributed to Venezuela’s decline.

Opposition politicians for years boycotted elections they saw as rigged, but they overcame deep divisions to coalesce behind a single candidate this time. They also kept that spot on the ballot despite sustained government repression, including the ban from the race of María Corina Machado, the strongest challenger to Maduro’s bid for a third term in office.

Machado, who overwhelmingly won the coalition’s October primary, is now backing the coalition’s replacement candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.

Pollsters project up to 13 million people will cast ballots July 28.