The democratic transition in Venezuela is a work in progress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a recent briefing. “Obviously, there’s a lot of work that has to happen to lay the groundwork for an election. As I said, you have to have true freedom of the press. You have to have multiparty participation. You have to have national reconciliation. I mean, you have to have an electoral commission that will accurately count the votes.” He noted that it has only been six months since dictator Nicolas Maduro was removed and there’s a lot going on at the same time, including on the economic front.
Secretary Rubio explained that the United States is pursuing two policy tracks in Venezuela. “We want to improve the ... the daily lives of Venezuelans economically so that they’re better off, they’re more prosperous.” That, he said, will help “facilitate the political transition.”
He added that “every element of political society in Venezuela has a role to play, not just in constructing elections but constructing the government and future of the country.”
So, Secretary Rubio called for “persistence and a little bit of patience” regarding the timing of elections, “not in terms of years, but certainly months and weeks.” It will take time, as Venezuela’s system has been in place now for almost three decades. Secretary Rubio pointed to the time it took to complete the political transitions in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. He also noted that Paraguay’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy took almost three and a half years to complete.
Such transition cannot be rushed, said Secretary Rubio. “If you want to do it right, what you want to have is a democratic transition that happens, that brings society together, where there’s a national reconciliation; where you have political parties that are able to openly and freely participate; where you have an electoral count but you also have an economy and a country whose institutions are functioning so that they’re not inheriting a disaster; they’re not inheriting the reconstruction process; they’re inheriting a functional state.”
There is movement toward a democratic transition in Venezuela. “And even though the progress is probably slower than all of us would want,” said Secretary Rubio, “there is progress and progress will happen, and we’re committed to it.”