Venezuela’s Future Cannot Depend on a Single Political Figure

For years, María Corina Machado (MCM) has been the moral voice of Venezuela’s democratic resistance. When the Guaidó experiment collapsed, and the opposition fragmented, she emerged as the only leader capable of rallying a nation exhausted by two decades of tyranny. The Maduro regime confirmed her strength by blocking her presidential bid in 2024 and forcing Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU) to take her place on the ballot—an election he won and the regime immediately refused to recognize.

What followed is harder to explain: an 18-month vacuum in which neither MCM nor EGU formalized the victory the Venezuelan people gave them. Participating in an election under the chavista Constitution trapped them in a political dilemma: claiming victory required relying on the same legal framework they sought to reject. That paralysis weakened the opposition at the very moment Venezuela needed decisive leadership.

Today the strategic landscape is different. The force capable of dislodging the Maduro narco-regime will not come from Venezuela’s divided political class—it will come from Washington. President Donald J. Trump has recognized what the last decade made painfully clear: chavismo is not a local political movement but a criminal state structure tied to narcotrafficking, repression, and foreign adversaries hostile to the United States.

A real transition will demand immediate purging of criminal networks, rapid stabilization, and a reconstruction plan executed with discipline and speed. Many traditional opposition figures, burdened by years of miscalculations and internal rivalries, will not fit in that process.

MCM now faces a historic test. If she can rise above partisan loyalties and lend her leadership to a national reconstruction effort, she may yet play a meaningful role in Venezuela’s rebirth. If she cannot—or if she hesitates—the transition will move forward without her.

Because the fundamental truth of this moment is simple:

Venezuela’s recovery cannot hinge on a single individual, no matter how admired.
The nation cannot continue waiting for political calculations or personal timing. The costs are too high, the stakes too global, and the threat too severe.

Those who rise to meet this new reality will shape Venezuela’s future.
Those who do not will be overtaken by it.