MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Venezuela's political opposition had long sought to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power and restore the country's democracy. U.S. forces took care of the first part of that scenario, but a democratic revival in Venezuela still seems a long way off. That is because Maduro's replacement is a hardline socialist, just like him. Meanwhile, as John Otis reports, Venezuela's political opposition remains deeply divided and unclear about what to do next.
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TOMAS GUANIPA: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN OTIS: That's opposition lawmaker Tomas Guanipa. He was demanding freedom for political prisoners during the opening session of Venezuela's National Assembly on Monday.
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GUANIPA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: But Guanipa, whose brother is one of the country's more than 800 political prisoners, was quickly silenced by proregime lawmakers.
GUANIPA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "The atmosphere is very authoritarian," Guanipa said by phone from Caracas. Maduro is gone, but there is still almost no room inside Venezuela for dissent. Regime loyalists control all branches of power. They hold every governorship, most city halls and 90% of the seats in the legislature. Except for a few lawmakers like Guanipa, most opposition figures remain in hiding or in exile. As for opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Corina Machado, she has been effectively sidelined by President Trump. Instead, Trump has chosen to work with - for now - interim President Delcy Rodriguez. That's despite the fact that, over the past 13 years, Rodriguez fully supported Maduro as he jailed opponents, crushed protests and rigged elections. Still, speaking with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Machado praised Trump's decisions.
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MARIA CORINA MACHADO: What he has done, as I said, is historic. It's a huge step towards a democratic transition.
OTIS: However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that new elections in Venezuela are not a priority for the U.S. Meanwhile, interim President Rodriguez, who is despised by many Venezuelans, will likely try to placate Trump while blocking any democratic opening. So says Phil Gunson, who's based in Caracas for the International Crisis Group.
PHIL GUNSON: The biggest threat is an outbreak of democracy. This is kryptonite for these people. Democracy will see them thrown out.
OTIS: Gunson says the opposition miscalculated by putting the country's future in Trump's hands.
GUNSON: Trump had his own agenda that - it was not the same agenda as the opposition leadership.
PAOLA BAUTISTA DE ALEMAN: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: That's Paola Bautista de Aleman, an opposition activist who fled Venezuela last year. She says it may only be through Trump's threat of further military intervention that the regime allows for free elections. As for Machado, who left Venezuela last month to pick up her Nobel Prize, some think she should return home. She's Venezuela's most popular politician after running the opposition's 2024 presidential campaign that, according to electoral observers, crushed Maduro at the polls. Andres Izarra is a former government minister who broke with Maduro 10 years ago.
ANDRES IZARRA: If I were Maria Corina, I would [expletive] go to Venezuela right now and go start organizing on the streets, you know, and mobilizing all that people. That people that voted for her, they're still there.
OTIS: Machado has vowed to return, but for now, it may be too dangerous. Maduro holdovers control the Army and police plus thousands of paramilitaries. Not helping matters are festering rivalries within the opposition itself. For example, Machado refuses to work with opposition lawmakers like Guanipa whom she views as traitors for serving in a National Assembly controlled by the regime.
GUANIPA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: For his part, Guanipa says Machado and other exiled politicians have made their own blunders, such as breathlessly promising regime change.
GUANIPA: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: "Leadership has an expiration date," he warns, "especially when leaders promise things that don't happen." For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Bogota, Colombia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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