Trump overshadows Venezuela's opposition and keeps Maduro's party in power

Opposition supporters in Venezuela had long hoped for the day when Nicolas Maduro would no longer be in power — a dream that came true when the U.S. military ousted the authoritarian leader. But while Maduro is in prison in New York on narcoterrorism charges, the leaders of his repressive administration remain in power.

The country's opposition — backed for years by Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S. — had vowed to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But U.S. President Donald Trump dealt them a major blow by allowing Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, to take control.

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

“They were clearly uninterested in the opposition’s kind of ethereal magical realism, the idea that all it took was one push on Maduro and everything would immediately revert to democracy,” said David Smilde, a professor at Tulane University who has studied Venezuela for three decades, referring to the Trump administration.

The US arrested Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a military operation on Saturday, seizing both from their home at a military base in the capital Caracas. Hours later, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela and expressed skepticism that Machado could ever become its leader.

"She has no support at home, no respect," Trump told reporters. "She's a very good woman, but she has no respect."

Ironically, Machado's incessant praise for the US president, including dedicating the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump and her support for US campaigns to deport Venezuelan migrants and raids on suspected drug traffickers in international waters, has cost her some support at home.

The legitimate winner of Venezuela's presidential election

Machado emerged as Maduro's strongest opponent in recent years, but his government banned her from running to prevent her from challenging — and likely defeating — him in the 2024 presidential election. She chose former 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 shocked the country by compiling detailed records showing that Gonzalez had defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin.
The US and other countries recognized Gonzalez as the legitimate winner.

However, Venezuelans identify Machado, not Gonzalez, as the winner, and the charismatic opposition leader has remained the campaign's leading voice, seeking international support and insisting that her movement will replace Maduro.

In her first television interview since Maduro's capture, Machado enthusiastically praised Trump and made no mention of his rejection of her opposition movement in the recent transition of power.

"I spoke to President Trump on October 10th, the same day the award was announced, not since then," she told Fox News on Monday. "What he has done, as I said, is historic and is a big step towards a democratic transition."

Hope for new elections

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday appeared to back down somewhat from Trump's declaration that the US would "run" Venezuela. Rubio insisted that Washington would use its control of Venezuela's oil industry to force political change and called the current government illegitimate. Venezuela holds the world's largest crude oil reserves.

Neither Trump nor Rodriguez have said when, or if, elections will be held in Venezuela.
Venezuela’s constitution requires elections to be held within 30 days whenever a president becomes “finally incapable” of holding office. The reasons cited include death, resignation, impeachment or “abandonment” of duties as declared by the National Assembly. This election deadline was strictly observed when Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, died of cancer in 2013.

On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president on Air Force One on Sunday, said he believes there will be an election, but did not specify when or how.
"We're going to build the country — infrastructure-wise — culminating in an election that will be free," he told Republican reporters from South Carolina.

But Maduro loyalists in the Supreme Court on Saturday, citing another provision of the Constitution, declared Maduro’s absence “temporary,” meaning there is no obligation to hold an election. Instead, the vice president — an unelected position — takes over for up to 90 days, with the possibility of an extension of up to six months if approved by the National Assembly, which is controlled by the ruling party.

The challenge ahead for the opposition

In its ruling, Venezuela's Supreme Court did not mention the 180-day limit, fueling speculation that Rodriguez may try to stay in power while seeking to unite the ruling party's factions and protect him from what would surely be a strong electoral challenge.

Machado on Monday criticized Rodriguez as "one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, drug trafficking ... certainly not an individual who can be trusted by international investors."

Even if elections are held, Machado and Gonzalez will first have to find a way to return to Venezuela.

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

Ronal Rodriguez, a researcher at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia, said the Trump administration's decision to work with Rodriguez could damage the country's "democratic spirit."

“What the opposition did in the 2024 elections was to unite with the desire to transform the situation in Venezuela through democratic means, and this is embodied by Maria Corina Machado and, of course, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia,” he said. “To ignore this is to underestimate, almost humiliate, the Venezuelan people.”