Venezuelan political scientists agree that the democratic world values the political struggle of opposition leaders such as María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, but disagree with regard to the effectiveness and lend of support of their international allies.
The Venezuelan opposition insists on its request to the international community, especially to the United States, which increases its pressures to the government of Nicolás Maduro to achieve a political transition, but analysts disagree about the effectiveness, firmness and speed of those support, despite recent measures such as The revocation of oil licenses by the administration of Donald Trump.
With just over a month in power, Trump recently announced that his government would revoke the licenses of oil operations in Venezuela authorized by Democratic President Joe Biden.
As explained by President Trump, Maduro breached an agreement to receive deported migrants from the United States, as well as the political-electoral pacts signed in Barbados with their opponents thanks to the mediation of foreign countries.
The licensing suspension was applauded by María Corina Machado, leader of the opposition, in hiding within Venezuela. “It is a big step and sends a clear and firm message that Maduro is in serious problems and that President Trump is with the Venezuelan people,” he said, hours after the measure was known, in an interview with the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
“This is the right thing (…) the Venezuelan people, at this time, feel that we are not alone,” he insisted, emphasizing Trump's support to “the cause of freedom” in Venezuela.
Weeks before, some opposition spokesmen were critical of the suspension of migratory programs for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the United States and also with the meeting between the special envoy Richard Grenelll and Maduro, in the presidential palace of Miraflores, in Caracas.
This week, the White House reiterated that President Trump “has made his position very clear” that “he opposes the Maduro regime”, after Grenell said in an interview that Trump “does not want a regime change” in Venezuela.
Previously, Edmundo González, an opposition leader who says he has won last year's presidential election with a wide advantage based on the voting acts, had stressed since his exile the importance of the world continuing to press Maduro.
In January, days after Maduro was sworn in as a ruler for another period of six years despite the opposition complaints of electoral fraud, González requested “more pressure” to the international community to achieve a political change.
“This is the only language they understand,” said the leader, who said he was about to start the third phase of his tour abroad, which has already taken him to Peru, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Argentina, the United States and some European countries.
A scenario other than 2019
The Venezuelan opposition seems to be in front of “a very different scenario” to that of the first presidency of Trump, between 2016 and 2020, believes the political scientist and university professor residing in the United States María Puerta Riera.
In 2019, the Republican President did not know Maduro as a legitimate head of state, supported the anti -Wearing leader of Parliament Juan Guaidó as an interim ruling of Venezuela and seconded a change of government without ruling out the military options.
“His priorities are others, and the democratic transition in Venezuela does not seem to be on that list,” says Riera, mentioning that Trump's message about the revocation of oil licenses prioritizes delays in deportened flights to Caracas.
“And his reference to the elections was not very clear. His interest is the immigration issue, where he has put Venezuelans in an extremely committed situation, ”he says.
According to Puerta Riera, the Trump administration does not have “a close relationship with the opposition”, at least not during the first weeks of its second term.
Support is “significant”
Other analysts, such as the political scientist Walter Molina Galdi, residence in Buenos Aires, believe that the Venezuelan opposition has “a significant support of the international community” and that Maduro's lack of legitimacy before the world is “obvious.”
“The entire world knows what happened on July 28 in Venezuela. And that is not less even when there are those who seek to minimize it, ”he told the Voice of America.
In his opinion, world support for leaders like Machado and González is not just symbolic.
“This is the understanding that the permanence of Chavismo represents a political, criminal and humanitarian crisis that affects the entire region,” he said.
Molina Galdi recalled that key figures of the Trump government, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his advisor Mike Waltz, the special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and the Undersecretary of State, Christopher Landau, “have expressed a firm support for the democratic cause in Venezuela.”
The expert warns, however, that the president of the United States can be “unpredictable” in some of his foreign policy strategies.
Some steps begin to be seen
The political scientist José Vicente Carrasquero agrees that Machado and González have “an important international recognition”, which was especially latent in the visits of the opposition leader to presidents of the region, such as Javier Milei, in Buenos Aires.
In his opinion, the White House “seems to have begun to take actions to press” to recognize the result that the opposition says that he has obtained in the July 28 elections, based on more than 85 % of the voting records.
Carrasquero believes that Trump seems to identify González as a “more committed” political leader with a democratic change in Venezuela. However, he highlighted the lack of more visible support of governments of the regional left.
Those support for the Venezuelan opposition cause are “absent” on the agenda of the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, he said.
“It is unfortunate not to have those three major countries in the region, which would bring an important weight to that international opposition against criminal terrorism that exists in Venezuela at this time,” he said.
The opposition currently faces internal discrepancies about its eventual participation or not in the regional and parliamentary elections provided for May. Likewise, the demands persist inside and outside the South American country so that the Maduro government releases the more than 1,000 political prisoners and respects human rights.