Trump leaves Venezuela’s opposition sidelined and Maduro’s party in power

Venezuela’s op­po­si­tion sup­port­ers have long hoped for the day when Nicolás Maduro is no longer in pow­er — a dream that was ful­filled when the U.S. mil­i­tary whisked the au­thor­i­tar­i­an leader away. But while Maduro is in jail in New York on drug traf­fick­ing charges, the lead­ers of his re­pres­sive ad­min­is­tra­tion re­main in charge.

The na­tion’s op­po­si­tion — backed by con­sec­u­tive Re­pub­li­can and De­mo­c­ra­t­ic ad­min­is­tra­tions in the U.S. — for years vowed to im­me­di­ate­ly re­place Maduro with one of their own and re­store democ­ra­cy to the oil-rich coun­try. But U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump de­liv­ered them a heavy blow by al­low­ing Maduro’s vice pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­dríguez, to as­sume con­trol.

Mean­while, most op­po­si­tion lead­ers, in­clud­ing No­bel Peace Prize win­ner María Co­ri­na Macha­do, are in ex­ile or prison.

“They were clear­ly unim­pressed by the sort of ethe­re­al mag­i­cal re­al­ism of the op­po­si­tion, about how if they just gave Maduro a push, it would just be this in­stant move to­ward democ­ra­cy,” David Smilde, a Tu­lane Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor who has stud­ied Venezuela for three decades, said of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The U.S. seized Maduro and first la­dy Cil­ia Flo­res in a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion Sat­ur­day, re­mov­ing them both from their home on a mil­i­tary base in Venezuela’s cap­i­tal, Cara­cas. Hours lat­er, Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and ex­pressed skep­ti­cism that Macha­do could ever be its leader.

“She doesn’t have the sup­port with­in, or the re­spect with­in, the coun­try,” Trump told re­porters. “She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the re­spect.”

Iron­i­cal­ly, Macha­do’s un­end­ing praise for the Amer­i­can pres­i­dent, in­clud­ing ded­i­cat­ing her No­bel Peace Prize to Trump and her back­ing of U.S. cam­paigns to de­port Venezue­lan mi­grants and at­tack al­leged drug traf­fick­ers in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, has lost her some sup­port at home.

The right­ful win­ner of Venezuela’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion

Macha­do rose to be­come Maduro’s strongest op­po­nent in re­cent years, but his gov­ern­ment barred her from run­ning for of­fice to pre­vent her from chal­leng­ing — and like­ly beat­ing — him in the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. She chose re­tired am­bas­sador Ed­mun­do González Ur­ru­tia to rep­re­sent her on the bal­lot.

Of­fi­cials loy­al to the rul­ing par­ty de­clared Maduro the win­ner mere hours af­ter the polls closed, but Macha­do’s well-or­ga­nized cam­paign stunned the na­tion by col­lect­ing de­tailed tal­ly sheets show­ing González had de­feat­ed Maduro by a 2-to-1 mar­gin.

The U.S. and oth­er na­tions rec­og­nized González as the le­git­i­mate win­ner.

How­ev­er, Venezue­lans iden­ti­fy Macha­do, not González, as the win­ner, and the charis­mat­ic op­po­si­tion leader has re­mained the voice of the cam­paign, push­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port and in­sist­ing her move­ment will re­place Maduro.

In her first tele­vised in­ter­view since Maduro’s cap­ture, Macha­do ef­fu­sive­ly praised Trump and failed to ac­knowl­edge his snub of her op­po­si­tion move­ment in the lat­est tran­si­tion of pow­er.

“I spoke with Pres­i­dent Trump on Oct. 10, the same day the prize was an­nounced, not since then,” she told Fox News on Mon­day. “What he has done as I said is his­toric, and it’s a huge step to­ward a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion.”

Hopes for a new elec­tion

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio on Sun­day seemed to walk back Trump’s as­ser­tion that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela. In in­ter­views, Ru­bio in­sist­ed that Wash­ing­ton will use con­trol of Venezuela’s oil in­dus­try to force pol­i­cy changes, and called its cur­rent gov­ern­ment il­le­git­i­mate. The coun­try is home to the world’s largest proven crude oil re­serves.

Nei­ther Trump nor Ro­dríguez have said when, or if, elec­tions might take place in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s con­sti­tu­tion re­quires an elec­tion with­in 30 days when­ev­er a pres­i­dent be­comes “per­ma­nent­ly un­avail­able” to serve. Rea­sons list­ed in­clude death, res­ig­na­tion, re­moval from of­fice or “aban­don­ment” of du­ties as de­clared by the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly. That elec­toral time­line was rig­or­ous­ly fol­lowed when Maduro’s pre­de­ces­sor, Hugo Chávez, died of can­cer in 2013.

On Tues­day, U.S. Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, a close Trump al­ly who trav­eled with the pres­i­dent on Air Force One on Sun­day, said he be­lieves an elec­tion will hap­pen but did not spec­i­fy when or how.

“We’re go­ing to build the coun­try up – in­fra­struc­ture wise – crescen­do­ing with an elec­tion that will be free,” the South Car­oli­na Re­pub­li­can told re­porters.

But Maduro loy­al­ists in the high court Sat­ur­day, cit­ing an­oth­er pro­vi­sion of the con­sti­tu­tion, de­clared Maduro’s ab­sence “tem­po­rary” mean­ing there is no elec­tion re­quire­ment. In­stead, the vice pres­i­dent — which is not an elect­ed po­si­tion — takes over for up to 90 days, with a pro­vi­sion to ex­tend to six months if ap­proved by the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, which is con­trolled by the rul­ing par­ty.

Chal­lenges lie ahead for the op­po­si­tion

In its rul­ing, Venezuela’s Supreme Court made no men­tion of the 180-day lim­it, lead­ing to spec­u­la­tion that Ro­dríguez could try to cling to pow­er as she seeks to unite rul­ing par­ty fac­tions and shield it from what would cer­tain­ly be a stiff elec­toral chal­lenge.

Macha­do on Mon­day crit­i­cized Ro­dríguez as “one the main ar­chi­tects of tor­ture, per­se­cu­tion, cor­rup­tion, nar­co-traf­fick­ing … cer­tain­ly not an in­di­vid­ual that can be trust­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors.”

Even if an elec­tion takes place, Macha­do and González would first have to find a way back in­to Venezuela.

González has been in ex­ile in Spain since Sep­tem­ber 2024 and Macha­do left Venezuela last month when she ap­peared in pub­lic for the first time in 11 months to re­ceive her No­bel Prize in Nor­way.

Ronal Ro­dríguez, a re­searcher at the Venezuela Ob­ser­va­to­ry in Colom­bia’s Uni­ver­si­dad del Rosario, said the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­ci­sion to work with Ro­dríguez could harm the na­tion’s “de­mo­c­ra­t­ic spir­it.”

“What the op­po­si­tion did in the 2024 elec­tion was to unite with a de­sire to trans­form the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela through de­mo­c­ra­t­ic means, and that is em­bod­ied by María Co­ri­na Macha­do and, ob­vi­ous­ly, Ed­mun­do González Ur­ru­tia,” he said. “To dis­re­gard that is to be­lit­tle, al­most to hu­mil­i­ate, Venezue­lans.”