Democratic Unity Roundtable

The Democratic Unity Roundtable (Spanish: Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD) is a catch-all electoral coalition of Venezuelan centrist, centre-left, left-wing and centre-right political parties formed in January 2008 to unify the opposition to President Hugo Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela in the Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2010.^[1] A previous opposition umbrella group, the Coordinadora Democrática, had collapsed after the failure of the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004.

In the 2015 parliamentary election, the coalition became the largest group in the National Assembly with 112 out of 167 (a supermajority), ending sixteen years of PSUV rule of the country's unicameral parliament.

Overview

The MUD was formally launched on 23 January 2008 and restructured on 8 June 2009.^[1][2] In June 2009 MUD included 11 political parties, and was led by Luis Ignacio Planas, President of Copei.^[1] 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.^[3] 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").^[3]

The MUD is supported by the Movimiento 2D opposition movement led by El Nacional editor and proprietor Miguel Henrique Otero.

Ramón Guillermo Aveledo^[4] served as the MUD's Executive Secretary from March 2009 to July 2014.^[5]

The journalist Jesús "Chúo" Torrealba became the coalition's current Executive Secretary in September 2014.^[6]

The coalition struggled to find a clear message in its early days, but has settled on a platform focused on human rights, democracy, and political pluralism. As a coalition of varying ideologies, MUD now rarely makes statements on social or economic policy, although it has supported the 2014–15 Venezuelan protests against supply shortages. MUD still occasionally faces internal divisions.^[7]

2010 legislative elections

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"^[3]).^[3] 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.^[3] Several others of the nine, regarded by the MUD as political prisoners, were also nominated, in districts with a real chance of opposition success;^[3] winning would require their release because of parliamentary immunity.^[3] Manuel Rosales, the opposition's candidate in the Venezuelan presidential election, 2006 and now in exile in Peru due to corruption charges (which Rosales denies), was also nominated.^[3]

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.^[8] Notable new deputies included María Corina Machado and Enrique Mendoza.

2012 presidential election

The MUD held an open primary election on 12 February 2012.^[9] 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).^[10] The other candidates on the 12 February 2012 primary ballot were:^[10]

• Pablo Pérez Álvarez: governor of Zulia state, representing the A New Era party; received 30.3% of the vote.^[10]
• María Corina Machado: former Súmate president and member of the National Assembly of Venezuela representing the Miranda state since 2011; received 3.7% of the vote.^[10]
• Diego Arria: former Venezuelan representative to the United Nations (1990–91) and former governor of the defunct Federal District (1974–78); received 1.3% of the vote.^[10]
• Pablo Medina: politician and former trade union leader, supported by the trade unions; received 0.5% of the vote.^[10]

2015 legislative elections

In December 2015, MUD won 112 of the 167 seats in the National Assembly to give it a 2/3 supermajority. ^[11]

Member parties

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The christian democratic Copei party was not a member of the coalition in the 2015 parliamentary election, despite having been a founding member of the MUD.

Electoral results

Presidential elections

Parliamentary elections

Election year	# of overall votes	% of overall vote	# of overall seats won	+/–	Leader
2010	5,334,309 (#2)	47.2%	67 / 165	–	Ramón Guillermo Aveledo
2015[12]	7,707,422 (#1)	56.3%	109 / 167	32	Jesús Torrealba

See also

• Great Patriotic Pole

References

External links

• Unidad Venezuela

Political parties in Venezuela National Assembly (167 seats) Democratic Unity Roundtable (109) Justice First 33 Democratic Action 25 A New Era 18 Popular Will 14 Radical Cause 4 Progressive Movement of Venezuela (es) 4 Progressive Advance 2 Clear Accounts (es) 2 Project Venezuela 2 Come Venezuela 1 Fearless People's Alliance 1 Emergent People (es) 1 Great Patriotic Pole (55) United Socialist Party of Venezuela 52 Communist Party of Venezuela 2 Bicentennial Republican Vanguard (es) 1 Extra-parliamentary Copei For Social Democracy Movement for Socialism Tupamaro Fatherland for All Venezuelan Popular Unity Democratic Republican Union Red Flag Party Ecological Movement of Venezuela National Council of Venezuelan Indians National Convergence Citizen Force (es) Portal:Politics List of political parties Politics of Venezuela