Venezuela opens political dialogue without the presence of its main opposition leader

Venezuela will begin negotiations this Saturday, August 1st, for a political transition with two parties at the table: the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez and a sector of the opposition backed by Washington. However, the most notable absentee will be the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado.

The political atmosphere has begun to heat up with demonstrations in various parts of Caracas. Opposition supporters are demanding “elections now,” while Chavistas are questioning this dialogue.

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Since the capture of Nicolás Maduro in a US military operation on January 3rd, Washington has maintained strong pressure on the government of Delcy Rodríguez and is promoting this dialogue, which could lead to future elections.

“The people are hopeful that, as a result of this entire process, we will finally have free and democratic elections,” Williams Dávila, a 74-year-old former political prisoner and former member of parliament who attended a march on Tuesday in support of Machado, told AFP.

Around 300 supporters of Machado, the country’s main opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, gathered in an affluent area of ​​eastern Caracas to demand elections.

The opposition denounces electoral fraud by Maduro in the last presidential elections of July 2024 and claims victory for Edmundo González, the candidate endorsed by Machado. The opposition leader was barred from running in the elections.

From exile, Machado promises to return to Venezuela, but she was not invited to participate in the political dialogue.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his satisfaction with the work of Rodríguez, who until January 3rd was Maduro’s vice president.

Machado currently lives in Panama and recently announced from there that she will not participate in the dialogue, although she stated that she will not oppose the process.

Several observers assert that Washington is blocking her return to Venezuela, although the US government denies this.

“A Fundamental Leader”

“They can’t keep excluding María Corina Machado, because she is a fundamental leader for all of us,” Dávila stated amidst blue flags, signs calling for elections, and white T-shirts, like the ones Machado wore so often during her failed 2024 presidential campaign.

The dialogue will be led on one side by Jorge Rodríguez, leader of the National Assembly and brother of Venezuela’s interim president, and on the other by Dinorah Figuera, an opposition figure who has been in exile.

Figuera heads the opposition bloc that won a majority in the National Assembly in 2015, but whose election was not recognized by Maduro. Washington, however, considers it legitimate.

The parties did not provide details about the location, schedule, or dynamics of the process.

Figuera and Jorge Rodríguez held their first public meeting a few days before the double earthquake that struck Venezuela on June 24 and has already left more than 5,500 dead.

On that occasion, the U.S. State Department endorsed the dialogue initiative and indicated that the agenda would include “key issues” such as the reconstruction of democratic institutions, the strengthening of the electoral body, and guarantees for political participation.

Pedro Benítez, a political analyst and academic at the Central University of Venezuela, believes that this is a dialogue imposed by Washington to enable “basic agreements that will allow the country to be re-institutionalized.”

The public powers “are illegitimate,” he said. “They are not the product of the free will of Venezuelans, but of electoral fraud.”

“Tied”

In addition to the opposition’s pressure on Rodríguez’s interim government, there is also a Chavista militant faction dissatisfied with this dialogue.

Francisco Arias, a deputy for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), asked in an Instagram post that it not be a negotiation “only approved by those who run the U.S. government.”

“It must be a negotiation that is then submitted to the country, to the people of Venezuela,” he stated.

Hundreds of Chavistas gathered Tuesday in the populous 23 de Enero neighborhood in western Caracas. There, public employee Noel Urbina told AFP that he felt “a very strong indignation” because the government has welcomed the Americans “with great fanfare, with hugs.”

They are “the ones who murdered Venezuelans, the ones who invaded us,” added this man, who defined himself as a “radical Chavista,” recalling the bombings that left a hundred dead during Maduro’s capture.

He warned that radical Chavismo has no candidate should an election be held. And he ventured to say that many Chavistas do not support Rodríguez.

Carmen Montes, a 70-year-old retiree, however, defended the interim president.