Venezuelan Presidential Election: Benjamín Rausseo May Attract Opposition Votes Away From Edmundo González

By Misión Verdad – May 30, 2024

The Venezuelan presidential candidate for the National Democratic Confederation (CONDE) party, Benjamín Rausseo, known for his humorous TV character Er Conde del Guácharo, has become a figure that is attracting the undecided voters that the Unitary Platform (PUD) candidate Edmundo González is also aiming to attract.

In all the opinion polls, Rausseo figures among the top candidates, and had even topped some polls two years ago. Now he claims to represent “true unity,” because he supposedly embodies a majority sector of the population that is tired of what he calls “old politics.”

In the same vein, he has said that he does not belong to the “institutional opposition” formed by the traditional political organizations, which in the last 25 years has become the only anti-Chávez bloc in the country. Rausseo accuses the opposition of being part of the problem inasmuch as there is no real unity amongst them to look for solutions for Venezuela.

Rausseo further claims that he represents 80% of the Venezuelan population, which according to him is tired of the government-opposition dispute. Therefore, he has based his campaign on projecting himself as a candidate who does not seek revenge or want to be a messiah, which in his calculations would be considered as an attractive and groundbreaking approach.

Benjamín Rausseo has been a victim of the far-right opposition, as it has repeatedly accused him of collaborating with the government just because he does not belong to that bloc that calls itself the “authorized” voice to speak for all anti-Chavismo.

In an interview with Vladimir Villegas, Rausseo said that when he had registered as a presidential candidate for the 2006 elections, he gave in to pressures from other sectors of the opposition, but now he has more experience and political maturity. He also responded to those who accused him of disappearing from the political scene at crucial moments, stating that, when some were at war with the government and asking foreign powers for sanctions, he was fulfilling his role as a businessman.

“The way we are now, we are not going to get anywhere,” he recently said to Voice of America. “This country is sinking deeper into darkness every day, and I believe that what we are proposing is a change, but a change for unity. Venezuelans do not want more fights. The common Venezuelans, the Venezuelans from the rural areas, what they want is to turn the page, they want unity, because they want opportunities, they do not want any more confrontation.”

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Rausseo is capable of capturing votes from the undecided fringe, those who are searching for opposition sectors outside of the far-right that has a confrontational discourse and has asked for sanctions and interventions against the country. He has also criticized the undemocratic way in which the process of choosing the “unitary” candidate of the opposition has been carried out.

“For me, turning the page means ending the confrontation,” Rausseo said in the VoA interview. “At this moment, Venezuela has three possibilities: one, the path of confrontation, persecution and revenge. The second one is the continuity of this government, and the third is to let the people decide.”

Seen in this way, his attempt to profile himself as a political outsider, his “successful” curriculum as an entrepreneur and businessman, and his willingness to lead a government far removed from the “radical right” and the “radical left,” constitute his intention to identify himself with that part of the Venezuelan electorate that calls itself undecided in terms of political preference, which represents more of a danger for the candidate of the Unitary Democratic Platform, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, than for the ruling party, PSUV, which is running with a single candidate and whose forces are organized and united around the leadership of Nicolás Maduro.

Rausseo is also presenting himself as an “autonomous” candidate because nobody is campaigning for him and he has his own government program. In the interview with VoA, he pointed out that María Corina Machado was campaigning for the Unitary Platform candidate, who has himself admitted that he will follow the government program of Machado.

If many opposition sympathizers prefer the end of political confrontations, it is more likely that they will opt for a candidate who dissociates himself from the PUD. This is where Rausseo seems to be placing his bets. Furthermore, he has made use of his humorous character that has always been critical of the various governments that have passed through Miraflores Palace since the 1980s.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/DZ