- Thousands of Venezuelans joined the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years on Thursday, demanding free elections.
- The marches were organized by the movement of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who wants a presidential vote by July 2027.
- Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former deputy, has run Venezuela in close cooperation with Washington since his capture in January.
- Trump has praised Rodríguez and called elections too soon while touting a massive U.S. oil deal with Caracas.
- Machado’s movement is shut out of U.S.-backed transition talks, and U.S. officials have asked her to delay her return home.
Nicolás Maduro is sitting in a federal jail in Brooklyn. His former deputy runs the country with Washington’s blessing. And the socialist movement that has governed since 1999 remains firmly in charge. So when thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets Thursday for the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years, the obvious question emerged: Did the United States remove a dictator, or just swap one face for another?
The demonstrations, organized by Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado’s Vente Venezuela movement, took place in Caracas as well as Maracaibo, Valencia, Maracay, San Cristóbal and other cities. Protesters demanded free elections and a timeline for presidential voting, with Machado insisting a national contest must occur by July 2027.
Security forces maintained a minimal presence at protest sites, a sharp departure from the heavy-handed crackdowns that followed the disputed 2024 presidential election. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez appeared to brush off the marchers in a statement reported by Spain’s El País, calling them “very, very small groups” who think blocking streets is the way forward.
Machado’s movement leads opposition while being excluded from U.S.-backed talks
Machado remains the opposition’s most powerful figure despite spending nearly a year in exile after months in hiding that followed the contested 2024 election. A recent AtlasIntel poll for Bloomberg News showed her with 52% support, compared to just 19% for Rodríguez.
Yet Machado’s faction has been excluded from U.S.-backed negotiations between Rodríguez’s government and a separate opposition faction led by Dinorah Figuera, president of the 2015 National Assembly. Rodríguez even hosted Figuera at the presidential palace as Thursday’s protests unfolded. Those talks, which have yet to produce a deal on elections, aim to overhaul Venezuela’s Supreme Court and electoral council to ensure fair future elections. Machado has said she won’t obstruct their progress, but reforms are expected to take time.
According to vote tallies released by the opposition, Machado’s proxy candidate Edmundo González Urrutia defeated Maduro in the 2024 election, though the government never published full counts and the country’s loyalist-packed courts and electoral council backed the incumbent.
Trump praises Rodríguez, says elections are ‘too soon’
Since U.S. forces captured Maduro in January, Washington has cooperated closely with Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, and her interim government. Both she and President Donald Trump have said elections will eventually happen, but neither has committed to a date for any vote.
Trump told TIME in late September: “It’s so raw now, you know that I just think it’s too soon.” The president has also repeatedly applauded Rodríguez’s leadership and her eagerness to court American investors.
Washington has also set prerequisites that could delay voting further: beyond a political transition, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio want Venezuela stabilized and its economy recovering, and Rubio has added a truly free press to the list.
Critics argue the approach prioritizes oil deals over democracy. In August, Trump announced a deal he said would give Washington majority control over more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves, about one-fifth of the country’s total. He later called it “perhaps the biggest deal ever made.”
Rodríguez’s New York visit drew ‘new face, same regime’ protests
When Rodríguez traveled to New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September, more than 50 protesters gathered outside the U.N., carrying signs reading “New Face, Same Regime” and demanding no oil deals without a vote. They chanted that Rodríguez was headed to Brooklyn to join Maduro, who awaits trial there on drug trafficking charges. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have pleaded not guilty.
Protester César Coello carried a sign depicting Rodríguez in an orange jumpsuit. “Delcy Rodríguez wasn’t born on January 3, 2026. Delcy Rodríguez has been with the Chavista dictatorship for more than 20 years. She has been complicit,” he said.
The socialist government that jailed opponents, oversaw dizzying inflation and presided over failing public services is still running the country, just with a different face in charge and Washington’s explicit backing. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have reportedly asked Machado to delay her return home. Venezuelans were promised liberation. So far, what they’ve gotten looks more like a hostile takeover that kept the old management in place.
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