Today, as part of What’s Next Venezuela’s “Meet the Candidates” series, we introduce Venezuelan opposition candidate Pablo Medina.

Pablo Medina, a former Hugo Chávez supporter, is running as the Labor Movement’s candidate in the 2012 Venezuelan primary elections.

Early in his political career, in 1971, Medina co-founded La Causa Radical or “Causa R” – a working-class, left-wing party – with communist proponent Alfredo Maneiro. Medina took an active role in the party, helping to rally support in the State of Bolívar and some parts of Caracas through the Matancero Movement, a union-based faction focused on organizing factory workers. In 1988, Medina was one of three Causa R candidates to win seats in Congress.

In 1992, Medina played a minor role in the Chávez-led coup attempt against the Carlos Andrés Pérez government. Three years later, he was appointed Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and headed a commission tasked with investigating the country’s external debt. In 1997, Causa R split between a radical faction led by Medina and favored by a majority of the party, and a moderate one led by Andrés Velásquez.

That same year, upon leaving Causa R, Medina created a new party – Patria Para Todos (PPT) or Homeland for All. He was joined by several well-known figures close to Chávez, including Aristóbulo Istúriz and Alí Rodríguez Araque. Despite his original support of Chávez in the 1998 elections, Medina questioned Chávez’s antics during the 2000 Constitutional Assembly. When Medina refused to go along with the changes to the Venezuelan Constitution, arguing that the changes gave the president too much power, he officially broke away from the Chávez camp. In 2002, Medina actively supported yet another attempted coup, this time against Chávez himself.

Today, Medina hopes to face off with Chávez in the October general elections. As a Labor Movement candidate, Medina hopes to secure the support of workers and unions from the public and private sectors.

Medina is one of Chávez’s most ardent critics. He has accused the president of treason and called for an investigation of Chávez’s close ties to Cuba and his handling of a scandal involving imported food that rotted in scores of misplaced shipping containers.

Leading into the February primary elections, Medina has established a platform focused on:

• Reorganizing the current political structure, stressing the need to decentralize and re-distribute power to the local entities. He has called for the creation of a new Constitutional Assembly that would restore the balance of power between the federal government and the states;
• Creating a “Republic of Workers,” developing short- and long-term plans to create as many as one million jobs in the country;
•  Decentralizing and streamlining the state run industries, including returning expropriated farmland to their rightful owners;
• Creating a safer environment for all Venezuelans by reorganizing the country’s security forces and returning power to the municipal police forces, so they can better tackle crime in their regions.

Click here to learn more about Pablo Medina on his website.