Could Venezuela’s softly-spoken opposition newcomer end 25

Hopes rise that Edmundo González Urrutia can beat Nicolas Maduro on 28 July and lead the country out of a wretched decade

The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.

But with less than a month until the economically fractured South American country holds its long-awaited presidential election on 28 July, some people are not persuaded.