Henrique Capriles has been a deputy for two sessions. This is the role he opted for last year along with other politicians separated from the hard line of María Corina Machado, who asked to boycott the parliamentary election and focus on the fight for the results of the 2024 presidential elections. His position is now reconfigured after the departure from power of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, after the United States attacks on January 3. In the bathrooms of the National Assembly, Capriles has crossed paths with senior officials of Chavismo with whom he has not spoken for more than two decades, and who now meet thanks to the “new political moment” that Venezuela is experiencing, as the interim president Delcy Rodríguez has called the stage he is leading.
During the first days that followed the shaken start of the year in Venezuela, Capriles had remained silent, until this Monday he gave a press conference together with deputies from the new opposition bench that they called Libertad,
On behalf of the group, which has only had one intervention in parliament, he has pointed out the role they play at the moment. “We want the Government to change, this cannot be a pax agreed, peace must be built,” the leader said before journalists. “We are going to defend what the country wants, what the people voted for on July 28, 2024, which is a change of Government… We have been waiting for many years and we cannot settle for three or four things. We Venezuelans have to reach democracy and that is our goal,” he said.
assures that the United States has understood the Venezuelan crisis, in reference to the three-step plan announced by the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio: stabilization, recovery and transition. But he assures that for years the negotiations “have been handled as transactions.” The leader insisted that, but when the full freedom of all political prisoners is dictated, there could be talk of a profound change or the beginning of a transition.
“Are we willing to leave behind the idea that having differences equals jail?” said the politician. “Until we talk about having all personal freedoms – and personal freedom is not limited only to not going to prison – we cannot talk about transition.” The transition, in his opinion, requires a new institutional framework and the construction of a path of trust that allows a real agreement between the parties.
The reunification of the opposition, an archipelago of parties with great differences in the strategy on how to conduct a change of Government, continues to be a great challenge, as well as the distribution of political tasks in this stage that is opening in Venezuela and that could represent an opportunity for these sectors. “In Venezuela there is a democratic opposition that wants political change. The one that exists in Venezuela and there are comrades who are outside. I believe that we must lower our arrogance. We are not in a competition. Each of us can decide what our role is in this process. Mine is for the country to recover democracy. That is my role and to contribute so that the country can have change.”
Salary and oil
One of the issues that they point out as urgent is knowing the scope of the new energy agreements that are being proposed in the country between Chavismo and Trump. “The oil issue is fundamental for Venezuelans. Not for the United States, it is for Venezuelans,” he remarks.
In this stage of stabilization that the United States Government has indicated, Capriles suggests urgent reforms to improve the living conditions of Venezuelans, such as increasing the minimum wage—which is currently less than fifty cents on the dollar—, emergency monetary compensation for certain sectors such as retirees and public workers, and the release of controls on the economy. He criticized that the president in charge, Delcy Rodríguez, did not give the key economic indicators during the presentation of her report and account, which have remained unpublished since 2024.
For Capriles, the fact that through the United States would occur without discounts, should translate into immediate answers about the daily lives of Venezuelans and their purchasing power. “It is said that the projected oil production for the year 2026 is 1,500,000 barrels of oil, plus VAT collection. We propose and request those who are in the decisions in the Miraflores Palace, who are in power, who continue to lead the reins of our economy, that in the shortest term a fair and decent bonus can be approved, it should not be less than 150 dollars for all pensioners in our country.”
