Venezuela's opposition surges as negotiations resume ahead of 2024 elections

Something unexpected happened in Venezuela last Sunday. Two million people showed up to vote in a primary election organized almost entirely by hand, run by the opposition parties themselves, with no government infrastructure behind it. For years, analysts and journalists had repeated the same observation: Venezuelans were too consumed by the daily crisis—finding food, earning enough to survive—to care much about politics. The regime seemed to have won not through force alone but through exhaustion. Then two million people voted, and that theory collapsed.

The timing matters. Within days of that primary, the government and opposition resumed negotiations in Barbados. The United States announced it would lift sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gas. The government released five political prisoners. For a country that has felt stuck in the same moment for years, any one of these events would have been significant. Together, they suggested something was shifting. But Venezuela has taught its people to be cautious with hope. The real test is what happens next.

The opposition primary produced a clear winner: María Corina Machado, a politician from the hardline wing of the opposition, captured more than 90 percent of the vote. She was not supposed to emerge as the dominant figure. Neither the United States, nor the unified opposition coalition negotiating in Barbados, nor the government itself had anticipated her rise. One source close to the negotiations described the three main actors as "not especially fans" of her. But the voters had spoken decisively. Now the government has drawn its line in the sand. Nicolás Maduro will not allow her to run as a presidential candidate. He has made this a red line, according to sources familiar with the talks. The government fears what would happen in a genuinely competitive election against her.

This creates an immediate crisis for the opposition. Machado has spent years skeptical of negotiations with the government, viewing them as a form of legitimacy-laundering for an authoritarian regime. She opposed opposition participation in elections for years. Now she has won a primary and faces the question of what to do when the government refuses to let her be a candidate. The opposition has a potential playbook. In Barinas, a state that was Hugo Chávez's birthplace, the opposition won elections in 2021 but the government refused to accept the results. The Supreme Court ordered a new vote. The opposition's candidate was barred. So was the next one. And the next. On the fourth try, a candidate was deemed acceptable and won. The opposition could follow that same path now—nominating candidates until one is allowed to run, maintaining unity around Machado's victory while working around the government's veto.

But unity is fragile. The opposition contains many different political sensibilities and interests. Other parties that did not participate in the primary might run their own candidates, fracturing the vote. Some of these groups, known as "scorpions" in Venezuelan political slang, function as a kind of opposition-in-name-only that poses no real threat to the government. Analysts are clear on the math: if the opposition runs united behind a single candidate in 2024, it could defeat Maduro. If it splinters, his chances improve significantly. Luis Vicente León, director of the polling firm Datanálisis, believes there is essentially zero probability that Maduro would accept defeat in genuinely democratic elections. If the opposition somehow won, he would likely retreat into deeper authoritarianism rather than leave office. The United States would probably reimpose sanctions. Venezuela would move further into autocracy.

Yet there are reasons for cautious optimism. Geoff Ramsey, the Atlantic Council's director for Venezuela and Colombia, notes that Washington has an interest in trade with Caracas, the government has an interest in money flowing through the economy, and the opposition has an interest in holding elections. Within that triangle of competing interests, there may be room for negotiation. The government's decision to allow the primary in the first place suggests some willingness to engage. The fact that it then opened a criminal investigation into the primary's organizers—three of whom were called in for questioning this week—suggests nervousness. The government's own prosecutor has claimed the primary violated the constitution because only the National Electoral Council can organize such events. But the opposition had waited months for the council to respond to their requests and never received an answer.

Historian Margarita López Maya sees a window of opportunity. She believes Maduro now regrets allowing the primary to happen at all. The government signed the agreement in Barbados without anticipating that people would actually show up to vote, that the opposition could still mobilize millions despite years of crisis and failed strategies. Now the government is in a position where it has little choice but to negotiate. López Maya is certain that in a fair election, the government knows it cannot win. The opposition has scored its first real victory in years. The nervousness visible in the government's response is proof of that.