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The Comando Con Venezuela (Con Vzla; ) is an informal
Venezuelan Venezuelans (Spanish language, Spanish: ''venezolanos'') are the Citizenship, citizens identified with the country of Venezuela. This connection may be through citizenship, descent or cultural. For most Venezuelans, many or all of these connect ...
political entity A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any group of people organized for governance ...
established to support the candidacy of
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 ...
in the
primaries 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 ...
organized by the
Unitary Platform The Democratic Unitary Platform (; PUD), or just the Unitary Platform (; PU), is a Venezuelan Crisis in Venezuela, opposition political alliance made up of civil society, trade unions, retired military personnel, political parties, and deputies of ...
(the main opposition coalition against the
Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader serving as the 53rd president of Venezuela since 2013. Previously, he was the 24th Vice President of Venezuela, vice president from 2012 to 20 ...
regime) in October 2023, and, following her victory, her candidacy in the
2024 Venezuelan presidential election Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 28 July 2024 to choose a President of Venezuela, president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025. The election was contentious, with international monitors calling it neither Free and ...
. Due to Machado's disqualification imposed by the General Contralory and upheld by the Supreme Court of Justice earlier that year, the ''Comando'' initially backed the nomination of
Corina Yoris Corina Yoris Villasana (born March 17, 1944) is a Venezuelan philosopher, professor and politician, who was the Unitary Platform candidate in the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, as the replacement for María Corina Machado, who was po ...
, and subsequently
Edmundo González Edmundo González Urrutia (born 29 August 1949) is a Venezuelan politician, analyst, and diplomat. A member of the Unitary Platform political alliance, González was its candidate in the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. A national and i ...
's nomination. The ''Comando'' coordinated the electoral campaign both in Venezuela and abroad, as well as the citizen-led electoral observation effort and parallel vote count conducted during the elections, claiming to have collected up to 83.5% of the election minutes issued on election day and publishing the results on an
webpage A web page (or webpage) is a Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of paper pages bound together in ...
. Currently, the organization leads efforts to defend González's legitimacy as president-elect of Venezuela based on the election minutes results. The complex legal challenges faced by the
Venezuelan opposition This article describes the history of Venezuelan opposition to the Chavismo, Chavista governments of former President Hugo Chávez and current President Nicolás Maduro. Commonly referred to as the Venezuelan opposition, or sometimes, anti-Chavis ...
in preparing for the elections (including judicial interventions of
political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
, the disqualification of candidates, and internal disputes within the opposition) have fueled debate over the strict characterization of the ''Comando'' as a political force. Additional complications included the fact that neither Machado nor her party,
Vente Venezuela is a political movement in Venezuela headquartered in the city of Caracas. It has parliamentary representation in the National Assembly. Its registration as a political party has not been granted by the National Electoral Council. Political id ...
, were formally part of the
Unitary Platform The Democratic Unitary Platform (; PUD), or just the Unitary Platform (; PU), is a Venezuelan Crisis in Venezuela, opposition political alliance made up of civil society, trade unions, retired military personnel, political parties, and deputies of ...
, the opposition's need to use the electoral card of the defunct
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 ...
(authorized by the National Electoral Council, CNE) and those of parties like
Un Nuevo Tiempo Un Nuevo Tiempo (Spanish for 'A New Era', UNT) is a centre-left political party in Venezuela. It received 11% of the vote in the 2008 regional elections. The party arose in Zulia State, Venezuela's most populous, and remains far stronger in i ...
and Movimiento por Venezuela to participate in the elections, and the late proclamation of González (the official president of the MUD party recognized by the CNE but previously lacking a high political profile) as a substitute candidate. While ''Comando Con Venezuela'' is not a formal party or alliance and officially operates as the "
Unitary Platform The Democratic Unitary Platform (; PUD), or just the Unitary Platform (; PU), is a Venezuelan Crisis in Venezuela, opposition political alliance made up of civil society, trade unions, retired military personnel, political parties, and deputies of ...
campaign command", it often acts independently of the coalition and plays a decisive role in decision-making. This has led analysts and journalists to describe it as the main coordination of opposition forces in Venezuela, which could be characterized as a
coalition A coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political, military, or economic spaces. Formation According to ''A G ...
,
party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...
, or de facto
political movement A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
. For the primaries, the ''Comando'' was composed of
Vente Venezuela is a political movement in Venezuela headquartered in the city of Caracas. It has parliamentary representation in the National Assembly. Its registration as a political party has not been granted by the National Electoral Council. Political id ...
, Alianza Bravo Pueblo,
National Convergence The National Convergence () is a political party in Venezuela. It was founded in 1993 by former President of Venezuela Rafael Caldera, who was a member of Copei and won a second term in the 1993 elections. From 1995 to 2004 Eduardo Lapi hel ...
, Emergent People, Organización Fuerza en Movimiento, Alianza Social Independiente de Sucre, Carabobo Militancia Nacional, and Generación Independiente, with
Popular Will Popular Will (, abbr. VP) is a political party in Venezuela founded by former Mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo López, who is its national co-ordinator. The party previously held 14 out of 167 seats in the Venezuelan National Assembly, the country ...
joining shortly before the primaries. Internal reorganization ahead of the elections saw the inclusion of members from other
Unitary Platform The Democratic Unitary Platform (; PUD), or just the Unitary Platform (; PU), is a Venezuelan Crisis in Venezuela, opposition political alliance made up of civil society, trade unions, retired military personnel, political parties, and deputies of ...
parties, although much of its partisan structure relied on Vente Venezuela. The proclamation of González as the presidential nominee led to the addition of figures close to him to the main ranks. However, some parties within the Unitary Platform, such as
Un Nuevo Tiempo Un Nuevo Tiempo (Spanish for 'A New Era', UNT) is a centre-left political party in Venezuela. It received 11% of the vote in the 2008 regional elections. The party arose in Zulia State, Venezuela's most populous, and remains far stronger in i ...
, have explicitly denied belonging to the ''Comando''. A significant portion of its militant structure is based on grassroots mobilization without formal party affiliation, with these individuals referred to as ''comanditos'' (). They are responsible for organizing campaign events. Another key mobilization element is the Red 600K, which collected electoral election minutes from Venezuelan polling stations through witnesses and mobilized citizens to protect them. From its establishment to date, particularly during the lead-up to and aftermath of the
2024 presidential election This is a list of elections that were held in 2024. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. *2024 United Nations Security Council election *2024 national electoral calendar *2024 local electoral ...
, the ''Comandos leadership and members have faced intense repression, persecution, and exile. Key figures from Machado's campaign team for the primaries have sought refuge in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas since early 2024, while an undetermined number of state-level party or technical authorities, as well as election witnesses involved in defending the election minutes on election day, remain detained without charges, with their families denouncing these arrests as kidnappings. At least one election witness has been reported dead while in state custody. The repression against ''Comando Con Venezuela'' authorities has drawn widespread condemnation from international human rights organizations and foreign governments.


See also

*
National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections The National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections or NAMFREL is an election watchdog in the Philippines. It was the first and one of the most famous election watch campaigns. It is known to have introduced non-partisan national election monitori ...


References

{{reflist Election and voting-related organizations Venezuelan opposition Opposition to Nicolás Maduro 2023 establishments in Venezuela