2012 Democratic Unity Roundtable Presidential Primary
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The
primary elections Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...
of the Unity Roundtable were held on February 12, 2012, and determined the presidential candidate of the
Democratic Unity Roundtable The Democratic Unity Roundtable (, MUD) was a catch-all electoral coalition of Venezuelan political parties formed in January 2008 to unify the opposition to President Hugo Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela in the 2010 Venezue ...
(MUD) for the
2012 Venezuelan presidential election Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 7 October 2012 to choose a president for a six-year term beginning in January 2013. After the 2009 Venezuelan constitutional referendum, approval of a Constitution of Venezuela, constitutional ame ...
, which were held on October 7, As well as their candidates in the coming regional and municipal elections, to be held in December 2012 and December 2013 respectively. These were the first open presidential primaries in the history of
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, and the largest of its kind and in participation in world history.Henrique Capriles gana las primarias de la oposición venezolana
http://elpais.com/elpais/portada_america.html
The selection process was through open primary elections, for which any Venezuelan citizen could vote, regardless of their membership in some of the political parties that make up the MUD. Similarly, politicians without membership in this coalition could participate in them, although they must register a certain number of signatures. In addition, all candidates are required to deposit a sum of money to pay 45% of the expenses that the National Electoral Council (CNE) requires to organize the primaries, the rest will be paid by the political parties of the MUD. The registration process for presidential candidates was held between November 1 and 3, 2011, and was attended by six politicians (in order of registration):
Leopoldo López Leopoldo Eduardo López Mendoza (born 29 April 1971) is a Venezuelan opposition leader. López was elected mayor of the Chacao Municipality of Caracas in the 2000 Venezuelan regional elections, regional elections held in July 2000. He is the N ...
,
María Corina Machado María Corina Machado Parisca (born 7 October 1967) is a Venezuelan politician and industrial engineer who is currently Venezuelan opposition, opposition leader in Venezuela. She served as an elected member of the National Assembly of Venezuela ...
,
Henrique Capriles Radonski Henrique Capriles Radonski (; born 11 July 1972) is a Venezuelan politician and lawyer, who served as the 36th Governor of Miranda from 2008 to 2017. Born in Caracas, he received a degree in law from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, ...
, Pablo Pérez, Pablo Medina and
Diego Arria Diego Enrique Arria Salicetti (born 8 October 1938 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan politician and diplomat who served as Venezuela's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1991–1993) and President of the Security Council (March ...
. On January 24, 2012, López declined his candidacy in favor of Capriles Radonski.


Presidential primaries


Pre-Candidates

The presidential candidates of the Unit's Bureau were registered between the first 3 days of November 2011, for the primary election to be held on February 12, 2012. This election had five candidates. Prior to the nominations, other political leaders and national and regional personalities declined, including:
Antonio Ledezma Antonio José Ledezma Díaz (born 1 May 1955) is a Venezuelan lawyer, opposition politician and former political prisoner. After unsuccessfully challenging for the leadership of Democratic Action in 1999, he founded a new party, the Fearless ...
, César Pérez Vivas, Cecilia Sosa and
Oswaldo Álvarez Paz Oswaldo Álvarez Paz (born 10 February 1943) is a Venezuelan politician. He was born in Maracaibo, Zulia and graduated in law from the University of Zulia. He was a Member of the Republic's Congress for over 20 years (periods from 1966 to 1993), ...
. After the registration process, the MUD Primary Electoral Commission decided not to admit Pablo Medina's nomination, since he did not have the necessary resources to help finance the primaries; But later he was admitted, after he committed to contribute what he could, claiming to be a man of few resources of union origin. On January 24, 2012, Leopoldo López announces the resignation of his candidacy to support Henrique Capriles. In the case of the Unit Presidential primaries (a political group opposed to
Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...
), a presidential candidate, a candidate for one of the two metropolitan mayoralties, a candidate for 18 of the 24 governorates, and a candidate for 276 of the 335 municipalities. Candidatures for the Caracas Metropolitan Mayor's Office, the six remaining governorships, and the other 59 mayors were selected by consensus. The presidential candidate of the Unit's Bureau will face Hugo Chávez in the presidential election on October 7, 2012. Instead, candidates for governor and mayor of the Bureau of Unity will do so mainly against the candidates of the PSUV in The regional elections of 16 December 2012 and the municipal elections of April 2013.


Opinion polls


Participation

The Bureau of the Unit reported a participation of 3,059,024 voters, 16.5% of the electoral roll, which was well above the estimate that several analysts had stated; 11 the general consensus was that a 10% participation would be considered a success. Journalist Eleazar Díaz Rangel, editor of the newspaper
Últimas Noticias ''Últimas Noticias'' is a tabloid newspaper in Venezuela founded in 1941 after pro-freedom measures implemented by President Isaías Medina Angarita and was the largest circulated newspaper in Venezuela prior to 2014. ''Le Monde'' and Reuters d ...
, had declared a week earlier that it was very likely that the participation would be around one million voters. The president of the GIS XXI polling station,
Jesse Chacón Jesse Alonso Chacón Escamillo (born 9 November 1965) is a Venezuelan politician, engineer, and former military officer. Chacón participated in the November 1992 coup attempt the second attempted coup of that year, when he took part in the occu ...
, who has been a minister Of Chavez in several portfolios, said that the opposition could not win Chávez if he did not get more than two and a half million votes. Television presenter Mario Silva initially stated that the primaries were not going to take place, but a few days before of them said that if they were held, less than 500 thousand people would vote. According to Teresa Albanes, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Unity, the percentage of Venezuelans abroad was the highest ever recorded. She highlighted the fact that more people voted than in the 2010 PSUV primaries, Government party, this time 900,000 people voted, although they were closed primaries for a parliamentary election. On 14 February, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the Unity Bureau to be given the ballot papers to review, since some candidates and sectors classified the number of voters as "fraud" even though the same court had Declared two years before the data of the electoral notebooks are confidential. A student of the Bolivarian University of Aragua, Arnaldo Espinoza, was run over by a crane of the state police while he was observing the opposition protest to the order of the TSJ. Hours later police officers would confirm the student's death in a Maracay clinic. The next day, the notebooks were burned by the Unit's Bureau to guarantee the confidentiality of the data in contempt of the order of the TSJ.


See also

* Democratic Unity Roundtable state primaries, 2012


References

{{Venezuelan elections 2012 in Venezuela Primary elections in Venezuela Opposition to Hugo Chávez