Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela, committed on Wednesday before the General Assembly of the United Nations that there will be elections in Venezuela, although she refrained from specifying any particular date or schedule for the elections.
In her address to the UN General Assembly in New York, the acting president of the Venezuelan government stated that a political dialogue has begun with opposition sectors to move towards an electoral process under equitable conditions.
«In Venezuela, there will be elections, and in this regard, we have initiated a political dialogue with sectors of the opposition to lead a process that ensures equal conditions for all,» Rodríguez stated.
However, the determination of the moment was deliberately left open. "The Venezuelan people, with their ancestral wisdom, will determine the right time, and their institutions will be ready to ensure that inclusive and transparent process," he added, without providing any verifiable commitment regarding timelines.
Rodríguez also sought to redefine the concept of democracy before the delegates gathered in New York.
"Democracy is not measured by the existence of elections. Democracy is measured by the quality of the competition that precedes those elections. An election should be a solution, not a generator of irreconcilable conflicts," he stated.
The speech also included the announcement of an "ordered legal reform" aimed at strengthening the state and providing legal certainty for both investors and citizens.
Rodríguez described the reform of the justice system as "urgent" and requested "support" from the international community without "any kind of interference" in Venezuelan affairs.
The statement before the UN comes one day after Rodríguez held a meeting described as "historic" with President Donald Trump at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan, the first in-person contact between a U.S. president and a Venezuelan leader in over eleven years.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who took part in that meeting alongside other senior officials from the Trump administration, described it as "brief but important" and revealed that the main topics were the restructuring of Venezuela's sovereign debt, economic stabilization, and the political transition toward free and fair elections.
For his part, the Venezuelan chancellor Félix Plasencia González described the meeting as "the beginning of a new phase in the relationship between Venezuela and the United States."
The context in which Rodríguez's announcement occurs is that of a rapid process of normalization between Caracas and Washington since the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3, 2026, after which Rodríguez assumed the role of acting president.
This process included, among other milestones, a historic oil agreement through which the company North American Blue Energy Partners gained rights to 17 Venezuelan fields with approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Rodríguez's electoral promise, however, clashes with Washington's specific demands, which have made full normalization contingent on elections with international oversight, a free press, and a legitimate National Electoral Council.
It also contrasts with the demands of the majority opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, who were excluded from the formal dialogue table and are calling for tangible results —the release of political prisoners, electoral guarantees, and the return of exiles— before validating any process.
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