Political coalition of Venezuelan opposition parties
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In July 2018, Democratic Action, one of the largest and most distinguished parties of the MUD, said they will leave the coalition.[7]
Overview
The MUD was formally launched on 23 January 2008 and restructured on 8 June 2009.[5][8] In June 2009 MUD included 11 political parties, and was led by Luis Ignacio Planas, President of Copei.[5] By April 2010 the MUD included around 50 political parties, of which 16 were national in scope (the rest regional), and had support from some other social organisations and opinion groups.[9] The main parties included in MUD are Democratic Action and Copei, the two parties who dominated Venezuelan politics from 1959 to 1999; the dissenting left-wing parties Movement for Socialism, Radical Cause and Red Flag Party; and more recently established parties Project Venezuela, A New Era, Justice First and For Social Democracy ("PODEMOS").[9]
The MUD was supported by the Movimiento 2D opposition movement led by El Nacional editor and proprietor Miguel Henrique Otero.
The journalist Jesús "Chúo" Torrealba became the coalition's current Executive Secretary in September 2014.[12]
The MUD declared common ideological points between its members in its National Unity Agreement. They support autonomy of State institutions. Furthermore, its members represent and foster ideological pluralism within the democratic Left. MUD supports freedom of work, property, press, and free education. It advocates decentralize power and federalization. It also promotes public security, defense of private property and economic freedoms, quality education, job creation, and job creation and fair distribution of income from national oil reserves. The MUD wants a foreign policy based on solidarity, especially Venezuela's neighbors. It also wants various policies to make Venezuela more democratic, especially in regards to reducing the institutional influence of the military and reforming electoral laws.
In early September 2012, David De Lima, a former governor of Anzoategui, published a document he said showed secret MUD plans to implement much more neoliberal policy, if elected, than their public statements showed. De Lima said the document was a form of policy pact between some of the candidates in the MUD primary, including Capriles.[13] On 6 September 2012, opposition legislator William Ojeda denounced these plans and the "neoliberal obsessions" of his colleagues in the MUD;[14] he was suspended by his A New Era party the following day.[15] One small coalition party claimed De Lima had offered them money to withdraw from the MUD;[16] De Lima denied the claim.[17]
In April 2010 the MUD held primaries in 15 electoral districts, with 361,000 voters participating, and selecting 22 candidates (the remaining 143 candidates were chosen "by consensus"[9]).[9] The candidates chosen included María Corina Machado (of Súmate) and Iván Simonovis, one of nine police officials allegedly serving time for participating in the alleged 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt.[9] Several others of the nine, regarded by the MUD as political prisoners, were also nominated, in districts with a real chance of opposition success;[9] winning would require their release because of parliamentary immunity.[9]Manuel Rosales, the opposition's candidate in the 2006 Venezuelan presidential election and now in exile in Peru due to corruption charges (which Rosales denies), was also nominated.[9]
In the September 2010 election for the National Assembly of Venezuela the MUD won around 47% of the vote nationally; however, it only gained 64 seats (out of 165) due to changes in population-vote distribution introduced by the incumbent national assembly that had a government party supermajority. In the same elections, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 48% of the vote and 98 seats, while the Patria Para Todos (PPT) party got only 2 seats.[18] Notable new deputies included María Corina Machado and Enrique Mendoza.
The MUD held an open primary election on 12 February 2012.[19]Henrique Capriles Radonski won the opposition primaries with 1,900,528 (64.2%) votes of the 3,059,024 votes cast (votes abroad not included).[20] The other candidates on the 12 February 2012 primary ballot were:[20]
Pablo Medina: politician and former trade union leader, supported by the trade unions; received 0.5% of the vote.[20]
2015 legislative elections
Leading figures of MUD celebrate their two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections in December 2015 (from left to right Lilian Tintori, Freddy Guevara, Jesús Torrealba and Julio Borges).
^Fernández Álvarez, Ángel (29 April 2018). Salvemos Venezuela. And that, the truth, is a latent risk because the only thing that appears until now, is the plan of the social-democratic parties united in the so-called MUD.
^"Ante la situación en Venezuela ¿Podrá continuar la MUD sin definir un líder?". MiamiDiario (in Spanish). 8 March 2017. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018. the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), when it was formed as the coalition of the opposition parties of Venezuela, to face the government of the late Hugo Chávez. But it has been a difficult path that has transited until now, because they converge 20 parties ranging from social democracy to liberalism
^[1]"In Venezuela, the electoral system is set up in a way that favors the majority party as well as rural votes more than urban votes. Chavez counts on support from the over-represented rural areas. The system means that even if the opposition won at least half of the votes, it would actually seat considerably fewer than half of the parliament.".
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