Venezuelan electoral body authorizes the opposition coalition that won in 2015

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) authorized, on Tuesday, June 29, the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), which gathered a good part of the anti-Chavistas and won the 2015 legislative elections, to participate in the local and regional elections next November.

“Today, in the session of our board of directors and unanimously, we have approved a total of 20 new denominations of organizations with political purposes, (…) therefore 20 new organizations that will be in force to participate in the next elections of November 21”, said the president of the CNE, Pedro Calzadilla, who mentioned, among them, the MUD.

The Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) ordered in 2018 the CNE to exclude the MUD from the process of validation of electoral ballots for going against “openly (of) the prohibition of double militancy”.

The president of the CNE did not detail if the TSJ was involved in the decision and only limited himself to explain that the board decided to give its “venia” (approval) to the inclusion in the electoral card of the parties Fuerza Vecinal, Convergencia, Activistas Democráticos Electorales y Alternativos (Adelante), Mesa de Unidad Democrática (MUD), Movimientos Centrados, and Movimiento Progresista de Venezuela (MPV), as well as to the organizations Suma País and Unión y Cambio (Única).

“These are the eight national organizations that today we have approved their denominations to participate and give them validity for their participation in the next elections”, he reiterated.

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Calzadilla further said that with these new inclusions, a total of 42 national and 64 regional parties would participate.

The MUD is the largest coalition that has formed the opposition to the Government of Nicolás Maduro and brought together traditional parties such as the social-democratic Acción Democrática (AD); Primero Justicia (PJ), in which former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles is a member, as well as Voluntad Popular (VP) of the opposition Leopoldo López and in which Juan Guaidó was a member during almost his entire career. It was also integrated by other smaller ones, such as La Causa R or Bandera Roja.

However, after the exclusion from electoral validation in 2018 by the Supreme Court, the coalition disintegrated.