Maria Corina Machado rules out participation in talks with Venezuela government

Caracas, Venezuela – Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has ruled out participating in White House-backed negotiations with the Chavista government due to begin on August 1. In a statement co-signed by Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, who stood as the opposition’s presidential candidate in the 2024 elections after Machado was barred from running by the government, the pair said they would not participate in the “design, development and operation” of the talks. The sidelining of the two key opposition figures raises doubts about the negotiations, which analysts say represent the strongest chance of a path to democratic rule in Venezuela in years. Machando and González said the mechanism had been created without their involvement and that “those behind it must inform the country of its objectives, methodology and timeline.” However, they added they would not obstruct any initiative that produces concrete results, including the release of political prisoners, the return of exiles and the establishment of a future electoral calendar. They also demanded accountability from those participating in the negotiations. The negotiations will involve representatives from the government and an opposition delegation linked to Venezuela’s 2015 National Assembly. The government delegation will be led by National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, who is also Delcy’s Rodriguez’s brother. The opposition side will include Dinorah Figuera, a former head of the 2015 legislature. The talks are part of a U.S.-backed effort to establish a roadmap for a political transition in Venezuela following Nicolás Maduro’s removal from power in January and intended to establish a framework for political reconciliation, including discussions on institutional reforms, electoral conditions and guarantees for political participation. But there are differences in how the talks are being framed. “The Venezuelan government, in the words of Jorge Rodriguez, sees the talks as a means of ‘perfecting democracy’ in the country, while U.S. Secretary of State Rubio speaks openly of a political transition, as laid out in phase three of the three-phase plan he first outlined in January,” Phil Gunson, Senior Analyst at International Crisis Group, told Latin America Reports. Gunson said the opposition’s priorities include reforming the National Electoral Council and the Supreme Court as a prelude to holding free and fair elections. “In essence what is needed is for Venezuelans’ political rights to be restored. The key question is whether these talks can achieve that, when so many previous rounds of negotiation over the past quarter century have failed,” said the analyst. “The difference of course is that this time the U.S. government is in a position to exert a great deal of control over the outcome.” Who is Dinorah Figuera? In the absence of Machado and González, all eyes will be on Dinorah Figuera, who the White House has picked to represent the opposition in talks. She was elected as a deputy in Venezuela’s National Assembly in 2010 and again in 2015, the year when Venezuela’s opposition won a two-thirds majority in the country’s main legislative institution. The Assembly became the centre of the opposition’s challenge to Nicolás Maduro’s government but its powers were gradually weakened after the Supreme Court, which was aligned with the government, blocked decisions and stripped the legislature of many of its functions. Figuera eventually went into exile in Spain in 2018 after denouncing the death of an opposition politician in state custody, saying she feared for her safety. From abroad, she continued her role in Venezuela’s opposition movement. After Maduro began a new presidential term in 2019 following a disputed election, Juan Guaidó, who was then president of the 2015 Assembly, invoked the constitution and declared himself interim president. Many countries recognized Guaidó and the 2015 Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate democratic authorities at the time. Although the opposition-controlled Assembly was later dissolved, it has remained a symbol of Venezuela’s democratic legitimacy for many opposition figures and some international governments, and exists in parallel to the official, Chavista legislative body. Figuera was appointed by the opposition to be President of the National Assembly in 2023, replacing Guaidó. But she only returned from exile in June 2026, to meet with Jorge Rodríguez ahead of the talks. What comes next for Machado? Machado’s decision not to participate reflects a long-running debate within Venezuela’s opposition: whether engaging with existing institutions can create a path towards political change, or whether it risks legitimizing a system they consider undemocratic. Orlando Pérez, a political scientist specializing in Venezuela, believes the decision to not participate in the August talks is a “smart move” from a tactical perspective. “María Corina Machado and Edmundo González are refusing to own a process they didn’t design, while making clear they won’t stand in its way. They want plausible deniability if this process goes south or drags on,” he told Latin America Reports. “The advantage is that by declining ownership while setting concrete benchmarks, Machado keeps the standing to call the process a failure if it produces nothing real. They’re positioning themselves as auditors rather than participants.” For Machado, Pérez said, this stance also preserves her record of never having negotiated directly with the government – something she has sought to avoid. But Pérez added that staying outside a process endorsed by Washington carries risks. “Being right about a hollow outcome doesn’t guarantee any leverage to stop it, and if the talks move forward regardless, their absence could start to look like irrelevance more than principle. While Henry Alviariez – national organisation coordinator of Maria Corina Machado’s Vente Venezuela party – believes key institutions such as the National Electoral Council need to be reformed, he added that there were also other fundamental matters such as the participation of the more than four million Venezuelans abroad in elections, as well as creating a post-election audit process. But one issue he said was particularly urgent. “What is even more important is creating certainty that there will be an election date in Venezuela, so that we know there will be a change of system.” Featured image description: María Corina Machado during a Nobel Peace Prize press conference at Grand Hotel in Oslo. Featured image credit: Kevin Payravi via Wikimedia Commons