As the harsh reality sets in that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime remains essentially unchanged even without Nicolás Maduro, activists who have spent years fighting for the country’s return to democracy are unsure what the next steps should be.
They agree that the country should hold new elections very soon or install retired diplomat Edmundo González — who is believed to have won the 2024 election — but neither option appears to be on the White House’s agenda at the moment.
After capturing Maduro and seizing control of Venezuela’s oil, Trump could have chosen to install González — whose victory the opposition demonstrated through the tallied accounts — but decided to leave the former dictator’s entire cabinet in charge of the country, arguing that it would now operate under White House oversight.
However, despite US claims that interim president Delcy Rodríguez has acted so far, the crackdown continues.
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Armed militias continue to patrol the streets and search people’s cell phones; a group of teenagers was detained for allegedly celebrating Maduro’s capture and released only a week later; and despite the regime’s promise of a “mass” release of political prisoners, nearly 1,000 people remain behind bars for daring to criticize or protest the regime.
Sociologist and activist Rafael Uzcátegui, co-director of the NGO Laboratorio de Paz, describes the current moment as just the latest iteration of the movement launched by Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chávez. With a government led by Rodríguez, her influential brother and Congress president Jorge and other figures such as feared Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela is now seeing “Chavismo 3.0,” he said.
“So far, state terrorism remains in place,” Uzcátegui said. “I still have doubts about the path to a democratic transition. So far, the signals are very weak,” he added.
Like many other activists, Uzcátegui was forced to leave Venezuela to avoid arrest or death: Between 2016 and 2019 alone, police and other security forces killed more than 19,000 people under Maduro, according to Human Rights Watch.
The work of civil society organizations inside the country has been further undermined since the passage of the so-called “anti-NGO law” after the 2024 elections, which requires organizations to be authorized by the government to operate. Only a few groups continue to work directly there, most of them focused on humanitarian issues, such as supporting the families of political prisoners.
Uzcátegui is among many who argue that, under the constitution, new elections should be called, with debate over whether they should take place in three or six months. He fears the Rodríguez brothers’ plan is to stay in power until the 2030 elections, when an economic recovery driven by reopening relations with the US would “give them a chance to win”.
Trump said the U.S. must first “rebuild” Venezuela and that Venezuelans “wouldn’t even know how to have an election right now,” but pro-democracy campaigners point out that Venezuela’s opposition managed to mount an effective — and victorious — campaign during the last election in 2024 — even if that vote was then stolen by the regime.
“Elections should not be at the end of the transition, but at the beginning of it,” Uzcátegui said, adding, however, that there was a “problem to resolve” between the organizations, because “some believe that calling new elections would undermine the significance of the results of 2024.”
González’s swearing-in was also called for by main opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who chose González to run in her place after the regime banned her.
Deborah Van Berkel, of the NGO Ideas por la Democracia, who now lives in exile in the US, said there was “a combination of a certain hopeful expectation, but also a great deal of caution, because … the regime remains in internal control of the country through repression” among activists.
New conditions would need to be put in place for new elections to take place, including a truly independent electoral council, unrestricted access for international observers, a free press and, subsequently, “conditions of democratic governance” for the elected government, she said.
Another activist in exile, Griselda Colina, director of the Global Observatory for Communication and Democracy, pointed out that there was not a single public institution that was not dominated by Chavismo and said that, unfortunately, the long-awaited democratic transition would not be quick, given that democracy “has been dismantled for more than 20 years.”
“This struggle is not new, but if Venezuelans have learned anything, it is that we know how to manage hope,” she said. “We are a people who refuse to live under dictatorship, a people who carry a democratic reserve in our minds and aspirations – and that has not gone away.”