The Venezuelan Opposition and Presidential Election

When the U.S. announced its re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Venezuela, it included mention of a "phased process" toward "a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government." Meanwhile, there is an opinion piece at Caracas Chronicles that calls for a primary to determine a single opposition candidate.

The twist is that María Corina Machado is clearly the opposition leader with the most political momentum (though she is now out of the limelight) but Trump consciously sidelined her and brought Enrique Márquez, another opposition leader who also ran in the 2024 election and was an opposition member of the CNE for several years, to the State of the Union. That gives us two high visibility candidates, which is exactly what Delcy Rodríguez would want and the regime wanted for many years before that--opposition division. So a single candidate makes sense if they can agree to it.

But there is also the question of what their platform will be. People will want to know what the opposition will do better and be reassured that the social services they have won't be removed. The country is already selling oil to the U.S. and Delcy talks very nicely about Donald Trump so you can't promise better relations. You can't really promise trials or accountability. You can talk about free market capitalism but you'll want to be very careful with that.

Delcy Rodríguez did a verbal 180, or close to it, so it's hard to be her opposite, whereas just in December it would've been easy. So it gets easier for people to choose her and avoid the unknown.