Freddy Superlano, far-right party Voluntad Popular's candidate for the Venezuelan opposition's presidential primaries. Photo: El Universal.
The Venezuelan far-right opposition party Voluntad Popular (VP) named Freddy Superlano as its new candidate for the opposition primary elections for the 2024 presidential elections, replacing the fugitive from Venezuelan justice system, Juan Guaidó. In March, Guaidó had been named as the VP’s candidate for the opposition primaries that will be held on October 22.
“The Voluntad Popular party has unanimosuly decided to participate in the primary elections with its own candidate… and announces that our standard bearer for those primary elections will be our brother Freddy Superlano,” the party declared in a statement on Friday, May 5.
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“Who better than a man who beat Chavismo, not once but twice,” Desirée Barboza, a national leader of the party, argued in favor of Superlano. What she tried to project as Superlano’s great achievement was being the candidate for the governorship of Barinas state in the regional elections of November 2021. Superlano was disqualified by the Venezuelan Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSJ) while the vote counting was going on, on the grounds that there were unresolved proceedings against him that had been initiated by the auditor general before the election. He was projected to win by 0.39% when the count was stopped. Barinas won the rerun election in January 2022, in which Superlano was not a candidate.
Hoy desde @VoluntadPopular hemos anunciado nuestro candidato presidencial para las primarias será @freddysuperlano https://t.co/OwXE6RK8b3
— Aarón Rodríguez Moro (@RodriguezAaron) May 5, 2023
The crisis and decadence of the party founded by Leopoldo López, another fugitive from the Venezuelan justice system, is evident in the quality of its chosen candidate. The party withdrew its support for the candidacy of Guaidó as he hit the rock bottom of Venezuelan politics after the failure of his US-backed “interim government” and growing rejection of him within the opposition. Now they support a leader with no relevance in the national political scene.
In addition, Superlano was linked to prostitutes and drugs on the eve of the Venezuela Aid Live concert in Cúcuta, Colombia, in February 2019. That concert was held to serve as a preamble for the attempted illegal entry of so-called humanitarian aid into Venezuela from Colombia, resulting in battles on the bridges connecting the two countries.
However, Superlano was not present on any of the bridges that day. He and his cousin, Carlos Salinas, were found unconscious in a motel in Cúcuta, under the effect of the drug scopalamine, also known as “burrundanga.” Salinas never regained consciousness, and died from overdose.
Now, Voluntad Popular, a party that started as a group of the most “cosmopolitan” of the Caracas elite, boasting of degrees from foreign universities and contacts abroad, especially in the United States, ends up under the leadership of a character that synthesizes the decadence of a political era characterized by anti-Chavismo.
(Misión Verdad) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/AF/LA
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
