Caracas, Venezuela – Opposition supporters in Venezuela have long hoped that day would come Nicolas Maduro He is no longer in power – a dream that came true when the US military overthrew the authoritarian leader. But while Maduro is in prison in New York on drug trafficking charges, the leaders of his repressive administration remain in power.
The nationalist opposition – backed by successive Republican and Democratic administrations in the United States – has vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of its own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But US President Donald Trump dealt them a strong blow when he allowed Maduro’s Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, to take power.
Meanwhile, most of the opposition leaders, including the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machadoin exile or prison.
“They clearly weren’t influenced by this kind of ethereal magical realism of the opposition, about if they gave Maduro a push, it would just be an immediate move toward democracy,” David Smiled, a Tulane University professor who has studied Venezuela for three decades, said of the Trump administration.
The United States detained Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores in a military operation on Saturday, and removed them from their home at a military base in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Hours later, Trump said the United States would “run” Venezuela, and expressed doubt that Machado could ever be its leader.
“She has no support or respect within the country,” Trump told reporters. “She is a very nice woman, but she is not respected.”
Ironically, Machado’s endless praise of the US president, including devoting her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump and her support for US campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and attack alleged drug traffickers in international waters, has lost her some support at home.
Machado has risen to become Maduro’s most powerful opponent in recent years, but his government has barred her from running for office to prevent her from challenging him — and potentially defeating him — in the 2024 presidential election. She chose retired ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia to represent her on the ballot.
Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner just hours after the polls closed, but Machado’s well-organized campaign surprised the nation by compiling detailed tallies showing that Gonzalez defeated Maduro by a margin of 2 to 1.
The United States and other countries recognized Gonzalez as the rightful winner.
However, Venezuelans view Machado, not Gonzalez, as the winner, and the charismatic opposition leader has remained the voice of the campaign, pressing for international support and insisting that her movement will replace Maduro.
In her first television interview since Maduro’s arrest, Machado lavished praise on Trump and failed to acknowledge his disdain for the opposition movement in the latest transfer of power.
“I spoke with President Trump on October 10, the same day the award was announced, and not since,” she told Fox News on Monday. “What he did, as I said, is historic, and it is a big step towards democratic transformation.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday He appears to be walking back Trump’s assertion That the United States will “manage” Venezuela. In interviews, Rubio insisted that Washington would use its control of Venezuela’s oil industry to force policy changes, calling its current government illegitimate. The country is home to The largest proven reserve of crude oil in the world.
Neither Trump nor Rodriguez said when or if elections might be held in Venezuela.
Venezuela’s constitution stipulates that elections shall be held within thirty days when the president becomes “permanently unavailable” for office. The reasons mentioned include death, resignation, removal from office, or “abandonment” of duties as announced by the National Assembly. This electoral timeline was strictly followed when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, died of cancer in 2013.
US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president on Air Force One on Sunday, said on Tuesday that he believed the election would be held but did not specify when or how.
“We will build the country up — in terms of infrastructure — and get to an election that will be free,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters.
But Maduro loyalists in the Supreme Court on Saturday, citing another clause in the constitution, declared that Maduro’s absence was “temporary”, meaning there was no requirement to hold elections. Instead, the vice president – a non-elected position – holds office for up to 90 days, with a clause extending to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party.
In its ruling, Venezuela’s Supreme Court did not mention the 180-day limit, leading to speculation that Rodriguez may try to cling to power as she seeks to unite factions of the ruling party and protect it from what will certainly be a severe electoral challenge.
Machado on Monday criticized Rodriguez, calling him “one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption and drug trafficking… and certainly not someone who international investors can trust.”
Even if elections are held, Machado and Gonzalez will first have to find a way back to Venezuela.
Gonzalez has been living in exile in Spain since September 2024. Machado left Venezuela last month when she made her first public appearance in 11 months to accept the Nobel Prize in Norway.
The Trump administration’s decision to work with Rodriguez could harm the nation’s “democratic spirit,” said Ronal Rodriguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia.
“What the opposition has done in the 2024 elections is to unite with the desire to change the situation in Venezuela through democratic means, and this is what Maria Corina Machado and, obviously, Edmundo González Urrutia embody,” he said. “To ignore this is to belittle, almost humiliate, Venezuelans.”