The Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles has denounced this Thursday that the interim government led by Delcy Rodríguez would be maneuvering to prolong its stay in power until 2030, thus avoiding the call for presidential elections that, he emphasizes, are a mandatory constitutional mandate after the "absolute absence" of the ousted Nicolás Maduro.
In a press conference held coinciding with the start of the third round of dialogue between the government and the opposition —a negotiation process that began in August—, Capriles has rejected the recent statements of the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, regarding the possibility of organizing several electoral processes under the Venezuelan Constitution.
"Here the first election that has to be held is the presidential one," the opposition leader has insisted, emphasizing that Delcy Rodríguez "was not elected by anyone" and that she only holds a "temporary appointment" given the conviction that Maduro "is not going to return to Venezuela."
The former presidential candidate has also referred to the president's trip to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) headquarters in Rome, where she presented the goal of 'zero hunger' by 2030, something that, in Capriles' opinion, demonstrates that "her aspiration is to reach 2030" by "any means." That date would coincide with the end of Nicolás Maduro's term arising from the 2024 elections, elections that various international observers considered were neither free nor fair.
Capriles has also referred to the decision of the U.S. Department of the Treasury to lift the sanctions imposed since 2018 on Jorge Rodríguez this Wednesday, removing him from the 'blacklist' of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The opposition leader has interpreted this gesture from Washington as an "incentive" to provide guarantees to the government representatives at the negotiation table, although he has warned the international community of the risk of minimizing their "evil."
"They want to sell themselves as new, but they are not; they are members of the same repressive apparatus that has existed over the last few years," he has pointed out, evoking Delcy Rodríguez's role in the repression of 2017 and the appointment of Diosdado Cabello as Minister of the Interior.
Finally, Capriles has criticized the "excess of recognition" that, in his opinion, the U.S. Administration would be granting to Delcy Rodríguez, to whom Washington already lifted the sanctions last April in the context of the new diplomatic scenario following the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a military incursion. The opposition figure has questioned that the Government intends to pretend normality with the announcement of "signing million-dollar contracts" and economic pacts that, in reality, "are not translating into improvements in the economic conditions of the people" nor in advances for Venezuelan workers.