By IANS
Caracas : Seven Venezuelan parties opposed to leftist President Hugo Chavez signed a national unity accord that they said was to coordinate their efforts in this year’s state and municipal elections, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Thursday.
The leaders of the parties also agreed to field “unity candidates” in the November polls.
Pledging unity under the agreement were the two much-diminished centrist parties that once dominated Venezuelan politics – Copei Party and Accion Democratica Party – and five other organizations ranging from the conservatives to the ultraleft Bandera Roja (Red Flag).
Missing is the Left-wing Podemos party, which once supported Chavez but has resisted the president’s effort to create a single socialist party in Venezuela.
The leaders of all the parties said that other political and grassroots organizations were also welcome to sign on to the national unity accord.
“It’s not only an agreement to guarantee unity candidates, but also a vision of the country, of values, a proposal not only for opponents” of Chavez, Luis Planas, Copei’s secretary-general said.
The country “is tired of confrontation” among the opposition and between the opposition and the government and is demanding “a political change in peace and liberty,” Omar Barboza, chairman of the social-democratic UNT party, said.
Enrique Mendoza, an opposition leader said that mayors and governors allied with the president are very unpopular and likely to lose in the December elections.
Last month, Chavez lost a referendum on a constitutional overhaul that he said was necessary to advance his “socialism of the 21st century” project and which included the elimination of presidential term limits. It was Chavez’s first defeat at the polls since winning the presidency for the first time in 1998.
The proposed constitutional changes were rejected in the plebiscite by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent amid turnout of less than 56 percent.