Democratic Unity Roundtable

The Democratic Unity Roundtable (Spanish: Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD) is a Venezuelan political party and former catch-all electoral coalition formed in January 2008. Its primary objective was to unify opposition forces against the government of President Hugo Chávez and the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), particularly in preparation for the 2010 parliamentary elections. The coalition succeeded the Coordinadora Democrática, an earlier opposition alliance that dissolved following the failure of the 2004 Venezuelan recall referendum.

The MUD initially brought together parties spanning the center-left to center-right of the political spectrum. Its principal components included Democratic Action and Copei, the two parties that dominated Venezuelan politics between 1959 and 1999. Following the 2013 presidential election, Justice First emerged as the largest opposition party within the coalition, and Henrique Capriles became the leader of the opposition.

In the 2015 parliamentary election, the MUD achieved a major electoral victory, winning 112 of 167 seats in the National Assembly and securing a two-thirds supermajority. This result ended sixteen consecutive years of PSUV control of Venezuela's unicameral legislature. In the 2017 Constituent Assembly election, however, the coalition boycotted the process, and as the National Assembly subsequently lost much of its authority, the PSUV reasserted control over the country's institutions.

Internal fragmentation intensified in subsequent years. In July 2018, Democratic Action announced its withdrawal from the coalition. By October 2018, El País reported that the MUD as a coalition had de facto dissolved itself.

On 31 August 2021, the National Electoral Council (CNE) reinstated the MUD's electoral card, restoring its legal status ahead of the 2021 regional elections. Since then, the MUD has functioned primarily as a formal political party and as the legal electoral vehicle of the Unitary Platform before the CNE.