Machado’s biggest challenge in Venezuela is patience

Maria Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela has some of the same sweep and drama of Simon Bolivar’s return more than two centuries ago. But if she wants her story to end better than one of the great heroic deeds of 19th-century Latin America, she will have to match her passion for her nation with patience for change.

Here comes the country’s defining heroine, a Nobel laureate, finally returning home after repeated failed attempts and almost a year in exile, with thousands of Venezuelans rushing to greet her with admiration and pride. For anyone who has witnessed the suffering Venezuelans have endured in recent years, the images couldn’t be more emotional.

At a time when Venezuela is the subject of cynical geopolitical calculations, and while some unlikely political alliances form and a race for its oil assets begins, Machado’s dramatic reappearance on Sunday provides a missing ingredient in this story: hope. For Washington, it’s a timely reminder that this complex political transition will happen only if ordinary Venezuelans have a clear vision of a better future.

Machado’s homecoming strengthens the case for a political transition and a legitimate popular vote in Venezuela. It can’t be a coincidence that the day after her arrival in the capital, the U.S. State Department laid out its clearest plan yet for new elections, following a process of institutional rebuilding.

No firm date has been set, but the blueprint calls for a new Supreme Court, known as the TSJ, by mid-December and an overhauled electoral body, or CNE, shortly afterward. After both have been in place for six months or so, legislative and presidential elections could happen, putting a potential vote on the calendar in late 2027 or early 2028.

Machado, who has been sidelined from the U.S.-brokered negotiations between the government and part of the opposition, now faces the challenge of how to calibrate her influence as she returns to direct political confrontation. Tensions with the White House have been brewing and, fairly or not, some in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration suspect her mere presence in the country could be disruptive after the rapport they built with her fierce rival, Delcy Rodriguez. Too much pressure and Machado could derail Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s so-called reconciliation talks.

That’s why her best approach would be to work closely with the U.S. government, collaborating on such issues as institutional restoration and the recovery of the oil industry — even if that may at times mean accepting conditions that would otherwise be hard to swallow, including a slower path toward an election. Machado should resist the temptation to rush the process or make impractical demands, even if she has the legitimacy to do so. The stronger these new institutions are, the better they can serve her when she reaches power.

Without American tutelage, the process of institutionalization will be difficult. The notion that Venezuela can go immediately from dictatorship to free and fair elections is wishful thinking. Just setting up the CNE will require titanic efforts: naming independent authorities, building a professional staff, changing the electoral system, rehabilitating dozens of political parties and updating the electoral registry to include millions living abroad. All of that will take months.

The good news is that time is on Machado’s side. Unless there is a massive shift in public opinion, she is very likely to be Venezuela’s president. Polls show she remains the most popular politician in the country. Her very presence gives the quest for elections greater popular strength.

Her challenge will be not to get too impatient. “You’re not going to street-protest your way into a democracy,” Rubio told reporters this week, recalling Venezuela’s many failed transition attempts in which he has been involved. “The way you do it peacefully is through a process, and it’s the one we’ve set up. And if this process doesn’t work, then the alternative is going to be worse.”

That may require making political compromises with the regime, something that Machado has never been known for. Understandably, after decades of political abuses, she wants Chavismo gone. But that won’t happen overnight. The kind of nation-building Venezuela needs cannot be done by a single political group.

“This is the last and best opportunity we have to move the country forward,” said Enrique Marquez, a former 2024 presidential candidate who spent a year in prison for denouncing Nicolas Maduro’s fake election results. He told me he was “aware of the importance of the Americans in overseeing this process and of the need for reconciliation among the political parties.”

Some of the people I spoke to from Caracas are convinced Chavismo has reached a terminal stage, weakened not only by its lack of cohesion but also by the burden of being a puppet of the empire it always despised. Maybe. But in any case, behind their facade of strength, Rodriguez and her entourage are increasingly unpopular, with no place in a future Venezuela. The clumsy reaction to Machado’s arrivals speaks to their evident weakness.

In such circumstances, it’s easy to understand how Machado would want to punish her rivals. But now is not the time. Venezuela is closer than ever to a genuine transition, which will be key to attracting the foreign investment Venezuela needs. And for Machado, a more conciliatory stance would not only smooth the transition, it would also show that she has the political skill to be the president Venezuela so desperately needs and so richly deserves. 

JP Spinetto is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin American business, economic affairs and politics.