KVIG Informative

Nearly seven months after the United States captured Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela started negotiating its political future. The woman the opposition and much of the international community say won the 2024 election isn’t at the table.

Venezuela’s de facto government and a segment of the opposition launched U.S.-backed talks in Caracas on Saturday, August 1, aimed at charting a path toward elections. The government delegation is led by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly and brother of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. The opposition delegation is led by Dinorah Figuera, former president of the National Assembly elected in 2015, the last legislature controlled by the opposition during the Chavista era and the only one Washington still recognizes as legitimate.

Figuera returned to Venezuela in June 2026 after years in exile, days before the twin June 24 earthquakes that killed more than 5,000 people. Her return and her meeting with Jorge Rodríguez marked the first public step toward these negotiations, announced in mid-July as a work plan to “strengthen democracy” and address the earthquake’s victims.

The talks arrive nearly seven months after a U.S. military operation captured former president Nicolás Maduro in January, ending more than a decade in power. The agenda includes institutional reforms, electoral conditions and guarantees for political participation, according to organizers.

Absent from the table is María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the country’s most popular opposition figure, according to polling cited by analysts. In a statement co-signed with 2024 presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, Machado said her movement would not participate in the “design, development or operation” of the process. “It is not our place to explain its scope and decisions,” she wrote. “Those promoting it must inform the country of its objectives, its method and its timeline.”

Machado, who has lived mainly in exile in the United States since last year, has tried unsuccessfully to return to Venezuela: the Trump administration has blocked that return, World Politics Review reported, calculating that Rodríguez would be a more manageable partner than Machado for ensuring stability during the post-Chavista transition. Still, Machado said she would not stand in the way “of any initiative that would produce real progress” and vowed: “We will return to Venezuela.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Machado ally, told reporters she would be welcome in the process “if Venezuelans support her presence there,” stressing that Washington is acting as a facilitator, not dictating terms. “In order for Venezuela to have the reconciliation that country requires to move forward on all these other projects, every element of Venezuelan society needs to be represented,” Rubio said.

Not everyone on the Chavista left backs the format either. Socialist lawmaker Francisco Arias criticized on X the negotiation of a process “approved only by those who run the U.S. government” and demanded any resulting agreement be submitted afterward “to the country, to the people of Venezuela.”

Political scientist Orlando Pérez called Machado’s decision to stay off the table a “smart move” tactically: it lets her demand results without owning the blame if the process fails or stalls. But the underlying question doesn’t depend on anyone’s tactics. A deal negotiated without the candidate the opposition and international observers say won the 2024 election will have to prove it can represent a country she has mobilized like no one else in recent Venezuelan history.