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Who isEdmundo González? He’s the opposition candidate with a chance, at least on paper, to unseat strongman President Nicolás Maduro in this weekend’s Venezuelan election. It’s a surprising position for this 74-year-old former diplomat who has never run for office and was virtually unknown to Venezuelans a few months ago. It’s more surprising that polls show him running ahead of Maduro.

But in a sense, Edmundo González is María Corina Machado, who won more than 90% of the vote in an open opposition primary in late October. Maduro-aligned judges on Venezuela’s supreme court then ruled her ineligible for election. After Machado’s first chosen replacement was also banned, she turned to the soft-spoken González, whose deliberately anodyne campaign message is that all Venezuelans must “come together.”