Will Venezuela’s MUD Be Able to Take the Bull by the Horns?

The Democratic Unity (or MUD) opposition party overcame its first electoral test of 2015 without any major traumas, on the route to this year’s parliamentary elections. On Sunday, according to Jesús (Chuo) Torrealba, the head of the MUD, a total of 543,698 Venezuelans voted in the primaries to elect 42 candidates of 33 electoral districts across 12 states who will be running for the Parliament (aka National Assembly.) Due to the little enthusiasm generated by primary elections for the Parliament in all the countries of the world, it was thought that a voter turnout of 6% would be considered an extraordinary outcome. So a voter turnout of 7.43% in the electoral constituencies these primaries were held can be considered extraordinary, if we took into consideration that the rate this year was higher than that of the primaries for the Parliament in 2010. More…