Neither delegation at Venezuela's negotiating table holds a current electoral mandate
The acting presidency has now run past two hundred days against a constitutional ceiling of 180, and the 2015 National Assembly has been extending its own term since it expired in 2021. The founding documents put it in writing: each side claims its highest title and denies the other's.
On August 1 the two sides that had just agreed to sit down and negotiate each published a statement about the same phone call. In neither text does the counterparty appear under the title it claims for itself. Jorge Rodríguez reports the make-up of "the delegation of the national government of President Delcy Rodríguez" — without the qualifier "acting" — and describes his interlocutor as "Dr. Dinorah Figuera, as representative of a sector of the Venezuelan opposition". The statement from the 2015 National Assembly runs the opposite way: it presents "Deputy Dinorah Figuera, president of the 2015 National Assembly" and her counterparty as "Jorge Rodríguez, representative of the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez". Each side awards itself its highest title and denies the other's, in the founding document of the process. This is not a matter of protocol: neither side can point today to a current electoral mandate, and who is bound by whatever gets signed depends on exactly that.
Keep reading — free
Sign up and read 3 analyses a month, free
Create your reader account with your email. No password, no card.
Want no limits? Subscribe to Explorer from $19/mes