UN fact-finding mission: Venezuela's repressive institutions remain intact

Report’s finding came days before Rodríguez’s UN speech

When Delcy Rodríguez addressed the 81st UN General Assembly on Sept. 23, she announced that Venezuela had begun a “democratic transition” and promised elections, without specifying when. The UPI commentary called the timing of her address “awkward” because days earlier — in its annual report to the UN Human Rights Council — the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela had concluded that the state institutions responsible for repression remain intact.

Her week in New York also included a meeting with President Donald Trump. Rodríguez had served at the highest levels of the chavista state and had been under U.S. sanctions since 2018 before Washington lifted them in April.

The fact-finding mission’s findings complicate that narrative. Mission chair Sofía Macher said in the report that “any opening will remain fragile and reversible” unless the repressive apparatus is dismantled. The mission acknowledged that Rodríguez’s government has released prisoners and expanded space for opposition and civil society, but concluded that the underlying state institutions have not been reformed.

“Whether those promises produce genuine change will depend on steps that can be verified: a firm election date, an electoral authority capable of acting independently, the release of political prisoners and meaningful access for international human rights monitors,” according to a UPI commentary by Beatrice Rangel, a member of the Board of Directors of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy and managing director of AMLA Consulting, which advises corporate and public-sector leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean. She holds a master’s degree in development economics from Boston University and a master’s in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School.

Rangel drew parallels between Rodríguez’s position and two historical Latin American transitions, writing that the cases of Paraguay and Brazil together suggest that “insiders sometimes can” begin a democratic opening but that the durability of any opening depends on whether the insider is prepared to “build, and ultimately submit to, institutions strong enough to continue the transition without them.”

In Paraguay, General Andrés Rodríguez — a pillar of Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship — overthrew him in a coup on the night of Feb. 2-3, 1989. Few expected an insider to open the system, yet his government legalized opposition parties, freed political prisoners, lifted press restrictions and held elections.

That opening lasted not because of the general’s goodwill alone. Paraguay’s 1992 Constitution prohibited presidential re-election, strengthened Congress and dispersed political authority after decades of concentrated executive power. A revived independent press and an increasingly institutionalized electoral system helped reinforce the transition. Economic growth also accompanied those political changes. According to the World Bank, cited by Rangel, Paraguay’s poverty rate fell from 51.4% in 2003 to 24.7% in 2022. But corruption, political patronage and concerns about judicial independence remain persistent problems — reminders, Rangel wrote, that elections alone do not complete the work of building democracy.

In Brazil, military President João Figueiredo continued the political opening his predecessor had begun, enacting the 1979 amnesty law and restoring a multiparty system. Civil society pressure transformed gradual liberalization into a broader democratic movement. In 1984, the Diretas Já campaign brought enormous crowds into the streets demanding direct presidential elections; more than 1 million people participated in some of its largest demonstrations. Although the constitutional amendment establishing immediate direct elections failed in Congress, the movement demonstrated that continued military rule had lost much of its political foundation. Civilian government returned in 1985.

In both countries, Rangel wrote, durable democracy became more than the gift of a single leader. Paraguay shows how an insider can begin dismantling an authoritarian system and then allow new institutions to take root, Rangel argued; Brazil shows something complementary — that a transition initiated from above becomes durable only when political parties, civil society, journalists, voters and independent institutions gain enough strength to push the process beyond what the old regime originally intended.

Rangel also surveyed the state of democracy across Venezuela’s neighbors, highlighting challenges in Colombia, Mexico and Bolivia alongside more consolidated examples in Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile. In Colombia, the Foundation for Press Freedom has urged President Abelardo de la Espriella, inaugurated Aug. 7, to respect press freedom and has objected to rectification demands accompanied by warnings of legal action against news organizations. In Mexico — which remains an electoral democracy — Morena’s political dominance, the reach of organized crime and the 2025 popular election of hundreds of federal judges, including the entire Supreme Court, have left its courts more exposed to the governing party. In Bolivia, President Rodrigo Paz faces pressure from unions, civic groups and supporters of former President Evo Morales as his government pursues difficult economic reforms, including the elimination of diesel subsidies announced Sept. 18.

Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 under José Figueres Ferrer and redirected national resources toward education and public institutions, Rangel noted. Uruguay, she wrote, built a resilient democracy on a political culture accustomed to negotiation and compromise. Chile strengthened its institutions after the Pinochet dictatorship and professionalized much of the state; even amid intense conflict, including the rejection of two proposed constitutions in 2022 and 2023, Chileans continued to settle their disputes through constitutional and electoral processes.

Like Paraguay’s General Rodríguez in 1989, Delcy Rodríguez is an insider promising to open a political system she helped build. Since August, her government has held talks that include opposition figures from the National Assembly elected in 2015.

The views and opinions expressed in this UPI commentary are solely those of the author.