Weekly Report - 2 July 2015 (WR-15-26)

Diosdado Cabello, president of Venezuela’s national assembly and number two in the ruling Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), on 29 June declared the winners of the PSUV’s day-earlier internal primaries for the 6 December legislative elections. Cabello, who as the PSUV’s first vice-president effectively runs the party (President Nicolás Maduro is the party president), said the PSUV primaries were “a lesson in dignity” in the face of “the contempt and sustained attacks from the Right” and heralded a great victory in December. Cabello contrasted the democratic nature of the PSUV’s contest with the internally-contentious process run by the main opposition coalition, Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD).