Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is set to meet US president Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, as the government in Caracas shows little sign of faltering.
Their first face-to-face encounter offers Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado a vital chance to present herself as a credible leader, after Trump excluded her from discussions on Venezuela’s future following Nicolás Maduro’s dramatic capture earlier this month.
Trump has claimed Machado does not have enough “support” or “respect” within Venezuela.
While he may have been referring to the powerful military rather than the public, polls indicate that a majority of the Venezuelan public want her to run the country.
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New surveys show although most Venezuelans are grateful to Trump for removing Maduro from power, a majority are not happy with his decision to leave Delcy Rodríguez – Maduro’s vice-president – in power instead of Machado.
A recent AtlasIntel poll for Bloomberg News shows 52 per cent of Venezuelans living in the country believe Machado should be in charge of the government, compared to 14 per cent who support Rodríguez.
The poll was conducted with a sample of 1,539 people in Venezuela.
The same survey included a poll of the population across Latin America, with a sample of over 11,000 people. In relation to the US seizure of Maduro, around 60 per cent of Latin Americans approved of his extraction, while 35 per cent disapproved.
Similarly, a survey conducted by the Venezuelan polling firm Meganálisis in the days after Maduro’s capture indicated that if presidential elections were held today, a total of 78 per cent would vote for the Nobel Prize winner.
This survey had a sample of more than 1,000 people randomly selected throughout Venezuela.
Machado is set to have lunch with Trump on Thursday before heading to Capitol Hill, where she will meet with meet senators from both sides of the political divide.
On the same day as Machado’s visit, Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, has sent an envoy to meet senior US officials. Félix Plasencia, Venezuela’s former minister of foreign affairs, is expected to lead the delegation.
[ Trump set to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina MachadoOpens in new window ]
If there were doubts about Trump’s relationship with Rodríguez, they were dispelled by the US president in a social media post on Wednesday night.
“We are making tremendous progress as we help Venezuela stabilize and recover,” Trump posted. “Many topics were discussed, including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security. This partnership between the United States of American and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL.”
Venezuela’s political landscape in recent years has been marked by a yawning gap between popular support for Machado and the consolidation of power in Maduro’s government.
Machado was the overwhelming winner of opposition primary elections with 90 per cent of the vote, but was barred by the regime from running in the 2024 presidential elections.
While Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 elections, it was against a backdrop of fraud claims by the opposition, which provided evidence to back its claim that Machado’s ally – Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – secured more than 70 per cent of the vote.
It remains to be seen whether fresh elections are on Trump’s agenda.
For now, there appears to be widespread gratitude toward the US president in Venezuela. The Meganálisis poll indicated that some 92 per cent of Venezuelans were thankful for the US capture of Maduro.
The survey also shows some of the contradictions about who is really running the country. While 68 per cent believe Trump and the United States have control over Venezuela, almost the same number – 70 per cent – also believe “Chavismo” (the movement, named after its founder Hugo Chávez) governs the country.
While Maduro is gone – for now – his political structure remains in place, a situation analysts have dubbed “Madurismo without Maduro”.
