An opponent, accused of collaborating with Chavismo, asked Venezuela’s supreme court on Friday to veto the ballot of the main opposition coalition for the July 28 presidential elections.
The action comes at a time when the National Electoral Council (CNE) – with an official line like the highest court – analyzes which parties are authorized to participate in the elections.
Luis Ratti, a businessman who calls himself anti-Chavista but fiercely opposed to the traditional opposition, went to the electoral room of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) “to request the annulment of the MUD card”, Democratic Unity Table, alliance of thirty parties that was born in 2008 and is now called the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD).
«That is not a political party. These elections have to be plural with the political organizations and that each legitimized political organization, that each qualified political organization can nominate its candidates that are qualified,” he added.
Ratti also requested the annulment of two other parties that made up the opposition alliance.
“We will also go to the CNE with the copy of the annulment request filed in the TSJ,” Ratti later said in another publication in X.
The PUD is in a race against time to find a candidate to replace María Corina Machado, elected in primaries but disqualified from holding public office.
Ratti says she will be a candidate under the ticket of Vente Venezuela, Machado’s party that she leads.
“Although Ratti claims to be an opposition member, the member parties of the Democratic Unity Roundtable point out that he is a member of the government of Nicolás Maduro,” said local media El Pitazo.
The most voted ballot in the history of the country
The MUD registered as a party in 2012 to run in the 2015 legislative elections, when it won a resounding victory against Chavismo. It was the most voted ballot in the history of the country.
Prior to the 2018 presidential elections, it was disqualified by the TSJ along with several of the main forces that comprised it, and was enabled again on June 29, 2021 for the elections of governors and mayors.
If they rule in favor of Ratti, the opposition would be left with one possible ballot, that of the Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party of Manuel Rosales, governor of the state of Zulia (west) and former presidential candidate in 2006.
Rosales sounds like one of the possible replacements for Machado, of whom he is not the closest ally and may not receive his support.
Other parties were left in a “legal limbo” with parallel directives, such as the traditional Democratic Action (AD), Primero Justicia (PJ) and Voluntad Popular (VP), all part of the MUD.
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