U.S. ties oil revenue and sanctions relief to three-phase Venezuela plan
Venezuela’s National Assembly announced Tuesday that the government and a portion of the opposition will form a bilateral technical working group beginning Aug. 1, marking the first coordinated effort to rebuild democratic institutions since Maduro’s capture in January by a U.S. military force. The process was initially scheduled to start weeks ago but was postponed due to the humanitarian emergency caused by two earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.
At the core of the agreement is an unprecedented mutual recognition between two parallel legislative bodies. The negotiating group will be co-led by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly that exercises control in Caracas, and Dinorah Figuera, president of the National Assembly elected in 2015, which retains Washington’s recognition and manages key assets abroad. The opposition-controlled assembly’s mandate remains legally valid, according to its members, though most lawmakers are outside Venezuela following judicial persecution and arrest warrants issued under Maduro’s government.
Figuera left Venezuela in 2018 because of harassment, threats, and direct political persecution by the government’s intelligence services, the announcement said. After nearly eight years in exile in Spain, where she led the legislature remotely, Figuera returned to Venezuela in June under a special protection and accompaniment arrangement coordinated by the State Department to lead the institutional transition process.
The working group will include 20 members, with 10 representatives from each side, and will address elections, formation of the National Electoral Council, and electoral laws, Figuera confirmed. “In my capacity as president of the National Assembly, I assume the commitment and political will to promote a bilateral technical and political road map, based on a working agenda with concrete objectives and milestones, that will allow us to address the fundamental issues needed to consolidate …” Figuera said in a statement posted on social media, before a link to the full statement.
The rapprochement is backed by the strategy of President Donald Trump’s administration, carried out directly by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The United States has tied the flow of oil revenue and the easing of financial restrictions to compliance with a strict three-phase plan: stabilization, recovery, and transition. Unlike previous transition efforts that sought immediate elections, Washington’s approach calls for “strategic patience,” the State Department has said, requiring the country to first consolidate internal security, economic restructuring, and press freedom before holding a presidential election.
Rubio’s public support for Figuera’s technical leadership reinforces that vision of a gradual and controlled transition, according to the announcement.
The process, however, begins amid visible divisions within the opposition. María Corina Machado, the opposition’s most prominent electoral leader, has been left out of the talks. The organization Vocería Oficial de Venezuela, speaking on behalf of Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, said they had called an urgent meeting with parties from the Democratic Unitary Platform and organizations that signed the Panama Manifesto. The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, is intended to assess the scope of the “joint working agenda” announced by Figuera and define a unified public position.
Machado and González reiterated that “the center of any agreement and decision must be the urgency of the people’s needs” and respect for the “popular mandate of Venezuelans,” according to their statement. Machado has called for transparent elections within no more than 10 months and questioned the lack of clarity over how a new electoral authority would be selected. Her ability to operate inside the country also has been limited after she said interim authorities in Caracas were preventing her return to Venezuela.
The move comes amid Venezuela’s complex political situation following disputed presidential elections. Digital news outlet Efecto Cocuyo reported that the agreement has generated both expectations and distrust among observers.