Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado believes that there could be democratic elections in Venezuela in less than a yearalthough he has not yet discussed it with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, he said in an interview with the digital media Political published this Thursday.
“We believe that a real transition process with manual voting… the entire process could be completed in 9 or 10 months. But, well, that depends on when it starts,” declared Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and exiled in the United States.
Since the capture of Nicolás Maduro in the US attack in Venezuela on January 3, Donald Trump’s administration has established relations with the government of the interim president, Chavista Delcy Rodríguez, and assures that he is under her tutelage.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared in January before the Senate that the ultimate goal is to achieve a democratic Venezuela through free and fair elections, but he did not detail deadlines for this transition, which, he said, will last some time.
Machado, who met with Trump in January and presented him with his Nobel medal, explained to Political who has not discussed an electoral calendar with the president, but showed his optimism regarding the holding of elections.
“We have a democratic culture, a strong democratic culture. We have an organized society. We have a legitimate leadership with great popular support, and our armed forces also support the transition to democracy,” he said.
The last presidential elections were those of July 28, 2024, in which Maduro was re-elected according to the Venezuelan authorities despite accusations of fraud from the opposition and countries, which recognized the victory of the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, supported by Machado.
Machado, who has expressed his desire to return to Venezuela as soon as possible, used those elections as an example that Venezuelan society wants free elections.
“If we were able to do that under such extreme conditions, imagine now, when we have the support of the United States government, when people feel that we are not alone,” he said.
