Just three months before the scheduled date for elections in Venezuela, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia He received a job he never sought: to be the candidate of the main opposition coalition that seeks to remove Nicolás Maduro from power, after 25 years of Chavista governments.
Since then, she has walked hand in hand with María Corina Machado at campaign events across the country. The popular opposition leader has carried her followers’ yearnings for change since she won the opposition primaries in October last year.
Machado was unable to register as a candidate due to a 15-year political ban and the retired former diplomat, 74, took over as the opposition leader ahead of Sunday’s elections, in which President Maduro is seeking re-election for a third six-year term.
His candidacy for the so-called Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), a coalition of 10 opposition parties, involved launching a strategy to make Venezuelans aware of his a character previously unknown in the front line of politics.
The opposition campaign has focused on two aspects: convincing Venezuelans that they are the factor of change and spreading the message that voting for Edmundo González is voting for Machado.
Edmundo González Urrutia campaigned throughout Venezuela alongside María Corina Machado. Photo: XINHUA
Trajectory
In his backpack of life he carries the experience of having been a young Venezuelan diplomat stationed in El Salvador during the civil war that ravaged that Central American country more than four decades ago.
He never held an elected office And, before being the opposition candidate for the most difficult elections facing Maduro, he spent most of his day with his family.
From one day to the next, he went from being an anonymous former official to becoming a key piece in the opposition machinery aimed at defeating Nicolás Maduro. Experts and observers have said that the opposition has a real chance of winning this time.
If he succeeds, he will govern during the 2025-2031 six-year term and will take office on January 10, 2025, as established in the Venezuelan Constitution.
The nomination is “a responsibility that I accept with humility. I did not expect it,” said Edmundo González Urrutia in April, when he formalized his candidacy, along with that of the Venezuelan president and eight other leaders of minor parties.
He offered to be part of “the democratization of the country” and the process to “seek understanding and reconciliation among Venezuelans,” the writer told The Associated Press in an interview.
González Urrutia was originally registered as a provisional candidate, waiting for Machado to reverse her disqualification and be able to register as a candidate. That possibility was ultimately cut short by the country’s highest court, which is controlled by the government, which put the former diplomat on the ballot.
Supporters of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia at an event in Caracas. Photo: AP
Before him, the opposition bloc tried to replace Machado with the academic Corina Yoris, but she was also unable to register due to a blockage in the electronic electoral system. However, González Urrutia’s candidacy was accepted by the National Electoral Council and was not objected to by anyone.
The electoral authority, now headed by the former Comptroller General of Venezuela who disqualified Machado from holding public office, never explained the reason why the system accepted González’s registration and not Yoris’s.
Since his confirmation as the standard-bearer of the opposition coalition, González Urrutia has had the support of Machado, who has not stopped traveling around the country promoting his candidacy.
Low profile
The former diplomat, in a country where stridency tends to be a known trait of politicians, has appeared with a man reconciledr, who speaks softly. This contrasts with Maduro, who adopted Chavez’s frontal style, characterized by virulent attacks on the opposition and the United States.
“Enough of shouting, enough of insults, it’s time for a reunion,” González has promoted in his role as presidential candidate.
He says that it will be his experience as a diplomat in countries in conflict that will help him to seek agreed solutions and remain calm if he comes to govern a country that has had a 25-year political model, first with Hugo Chávez and then with the Maduro decade.
“These are situations that teach you how to live in stressful situations, in dangerous situations, in risky situations, in situations where personal insecurity is evident,” said González about his time in countries like El Salvador, where in the 12 years of civil war (1980-1992), at least 75,000 people died and another 12,000 disappeared.
González Urrutia was also the first secretary of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. In the US capital he obtained a master’s degree in International Relations in 1981.
After He was Venezuela’s ambassador to Argentina between 1998 and 2002, after heading the diplomatic legation in Algeria -between 1991 and 1993- and occupying various positions in the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry.
González Urrutia has pledged to carry out a transition period, “in which the freedom of political prisoners, the return of exiles and all Venezuelans abroad are guaranteed,” in a country that has seen more than seven million people flee its territory in the last decade amid the political, economic and social crisis.
