Venezuela’s Rodríguez vows elections but sets no date

Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, promised on Oct. 29 that the country will hold all elections required by its constitution under a renewed electoral authority, but she gave no date, four days after opposition leader María Corina Machado returned from exile.

The omission matters because the U.S. State Department has said the roadmap should lead to a presidential vacancy in 2027, MercoPress reported. Rodríguez has led Venezuela since January, after Nicolás Maduro was removed in a U.S. military operation, MercoPress reported.

Rodríguez spoke from the Miraflores presidential palace in an address carried on state television and social media, CiberCuba reported. “There will be elections, all those our Constitution requires, organised by a renewed electoral authority and with the world as witness,” she said, in the translation published by MercoPress.

She rejected a fixed timetable. “Venezuela’s political horizon is not measured by a date on the calendar but by a sequence of objectives we must achieve,” Rodríguez said, naming legal reform and guarantees of participation for all political forces among them. She also said she is “the right person to carry this process forward.”

Neither outlet reported a deadline or an explanation of how the National Electoral Council would be renewed. CiberCuba noted that Rodríguez made a similar promise without a date at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The government has negotiated with a delegation from the opposition National Assembly elected in 2015 since August, MercoPress reported. The roadmap under discussion would first renew the Supreme Court, then reform the electoral council, then lead Rodríguez to declare the presidency vacant, which would start a constitutional window to call a presidential election in 2027.

CiberCuba said the judicial nominations committee was sworn in on Oct. 22 and must deliver a list of 32 magistrates to the National Assembly before Dec. 11. That date is the first firm marker on the road to an election.

Machado, who returned to Caracas on Oct. 25 after nearly 10 months abroad, rejects that sequence, according to MercoPress. She told Reuters, as summarized in a daily briefing of the day’s news, that the United States has suggested Venezuela hold an election next year, and has pledged that “Venezuela will be free, prosperous, and sovereign.” Her movement, Vente Venezuela, is not at the formal negotiating table, CiberCuba reported.

MercoPress also reported that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Oct. 27 that Venezuela become the “51st state” and elect a governor. That claim is reported by one outlet and was not independently confirmed by Canada News Media.

For Canadians, the main links are energy and community. Venezuela’s heavy crude competes with Canadian oil for U.S. Gulf Coast refiners, a theme in our earlier reporting on the Venezuela oil deal and Canada’s crude exports.

Earlier this week we reported that Machado returned to Venezuela after 10 months in exile, and last week that thousands of Venezuelans marched to demand elections. The story is developing, and the next test is whether the Dec. 11 judicial deadline is met.

Via MercoPress and CiberCuba.

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