The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated this Thursday that the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, can take on a relevant role in the internal reconciliation process in Venezuela. However, he insisted that it will be the Venezuelan actors themselves who define the steps to follow, emphasizing that Washington "facilitates but does not dictate" the course of this dialogue.
"That must be decided by the Venezuelans. I am sure that she can play a role if they wish," the head of U.S. diplomacy stated when asked about Machado, in remarks made in the Philippines, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.
Rubio stressed that Venezuelan society must feel reflected in this process and recalled that Machado "has supporters and people who back her" in the country. "There are also others," he added, to emphasize that, in any case, the United States is "to facilitate it, not to dictate it."
The U.S. official described as a "really positive advance" that the National Assembly of 2015, recognized by Washington as the legitimate authority until Nicolás Maduro's exit in a military operation by his Army in January of this year, maintains contacts with representatives of the government with a view to a "reconciliation" process. In his view, the dialogue channel that will open in August between the opposition and the interim government in Venezuela, led by Delcy Rodríguez, must translate into concrete advances in institutional reform.
In this regard, he argued that opposition parties need to evolve "from being street protest movements to becoming electoral forces," and he focused on the need for a free press that can inform without hindrance. For Rubio, it is equally essential to have an electoral council that guarantees a reliable vote count, as part of the necessary reforms to build a democratic infrastructure that allows "to ensure that the ballots are safe and that people do not suffer intimidation."
The Secretary of State has warned that the democratic transition requires time and planning. "There are many aspects that intervene in an election. Furthermore, the necessary infrastructure must be created to hold elections, something that really has not been invested in for a long time," he pointed out, emphasizing that this is not an immediate process. "That takes more than a few weeks, especially when it comes to something that has been in effect for 25 years, unfortunately for the people of Venezuela," he argued.
Reconciliation Process in Venezuela
In line with these words, the president of the National Assembly of 2015, Dinorah Figuera, has announced that starting on August 1, she will call on "all democratic sectors to participate and contribute proposals to enrich the roadmap," emphasizing that Machado "is very important in this process." Figuera has assured that she shares Rubio's approach and has defended that "national reconciliation requires breadth, representation, and participation to advance towards a peaceful and democratic electoral transition," as she expressed in a message disseminated on social networks.
The Venezuelan National Assembly presented a 'roadmap' agreed upon with the opposition a few weeks ago for the reconstruction of the country after the double earthquake recorded on June 24. The opposition Parliament, which for years acted as a parallel authority, framed this common agenda in an effort to "promote stability, democracy, and national recovery, constituting the beginning of the construction of a new stage that will lead to a Venezuela of progress and freedoms."
In a context where it is still being defined who will sit at the negotiation table, various opposition figures, including former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, have demanded that the process include the Nobel Peace Prize winner and focus on the "institutional reconstruction" of the country. Capriles has denounced that the authorities in Caracas have been acting "with their backs to the Venezuelans" for years and has warned that "any negotiation process cannot be a calculation of someone, or against someone, or to exclude someone. In that line, a negotiation excluding María Corina Machado and what she represents will be doomed to fail."