Machado Calls for a 2027 Venezuelan Election as Rodríguez Promises a Vote Without a Date

María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, said on Thursday 29 October that the country is moving “irreversibly toward a presidential election in 2027,” in her first news conference since returning from exile. Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president, said the same day that there “will be elections,” and gave no date.

Ms Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and returned to Venezuela on Sunday 25 October after about ten months abroad, based the year on Washington’s plan rather than on any Venezuelan decision. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has set out a sequence of events” that makes clear presidential elections will be held in 2027, she said, Al Jazeera reported. The Associated Press describes Mr Rubio’s sequence as three phases: stabilisation, recovery and transition. Ms Rodríguez, in a national address, said the vote would be organised by a “renewed electoral authority,” “with the world as witness,” AP reported.

Neither statement is a legal act. Venezuela’s constitution says when an election is due if a president’s absence becomes permanent, and the step that would start that clock has not been taken.

Who is governing, and under what rule?

The vice-president, under a temporary arrangement that has outrun its own limit. Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces in a raid on 3 January and faces US drug trafficking and torture charges, which he denies, Reuters reported. Venezuela’s highest court said Ms Rodríguez could serve as acting president for up to 90 days, extendable by the National Assembly for another 90, and the ruling-party-controlled assembly never voted to extend it, AP reported on 25 October.

That framework comes from Article 234 of the 1999 constitution, which covers a president’s temporary absence: the executive vice-president stands in “for a period of up to 90 days,” the assembly may add 90 more, and if the absence runs past 90 consecutive days the assembly decides, by a majority of its members, whether to treat it as permanent. Article 233 governs permanent absence. If it arises in the first four years of a term, a new election must be held within 30 consecutive days, with the vice-president in charge meanwhile. Mr Maduro’s current term began in January 2025, so any permanent absence would fall in that window.

How do the dates compare?

Every constitutional limit has already passed except the one that has not been triggered. The table sets them out. These are this publication’s calculations, counting from 3 January, the date of the raid given by AP and Al Jazeera.

The table shows two things at once. The current arrangement is neither of the two the constitution describes: a temporary replacement past its temporary term, without the declaration that would require an election. And the one rule that would force a date would force a much earlier one than anyone is proposing. A declaration of permanent absence would oblige an election within 30 days, under an electoral council that Mr Rubio says must first be rebuilt.

What would a “renewed electoral authority” require?

A two-thirds vote in a legislature the governing party controls. Article 296 gives the National Electoral Council five members with no ties to political organisations: three nominated by civil society, one by the law and political science faculties of the national universities and one by the Citizen Power. They “shall be designated by a two thirds vote of the members of the National Assembly.” It is the body that declared Mr Maduro the winner of the 2024 election, and AP describes it as “stacked with ruling-party loyalists.”

Mr Rubio has argued that Venezuela must rebuild its institutions, “including its courts and electoral council,” before an election, AP reported, and Reuters reports that the US-backed talks would overhaul the electoral council alongside the top court. Ms Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, is not part of those talks. She said she would not obstruct them. She said she had received no message from Ms Rodríguez or from Washington about a meeting, AP reported.

What else did Machado ask for?

Prisoners first, and transparency on oil. Her priority, she said, is “the complete dismantling of the repressive system and the release of all our political prisoners.” Foro Penal, a Venezuelan rights group, counts 322 political prisoners, more than half of them unconvicted, Reuters reported. She also criticised the US–Venezuela oil agreement, under which Venezuela hands over 20 per cent of its oil reserves, as falling short of the transparency Venezuelans want, Al Jazeera reported. Ms Rodríguez, for her part, said the election “should not be a problem nor should it take us back to times of confrontation that no one wants anymore.”

Ms Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by a committee over which, as this publication reported this week, Norway’s government says it has no say. Venezuela’s succession problem is closer to Cameroon’s: a constitutional office whose rules work only once someone acts on them. The constitution allows a vice-president to stand in for 90 days, or 180 with permission. It does not say what happens on day 299.