Adapt or Die: The Tutelary Transition in Venezuela

By Juan Manuel Trak. 

Published in: Medium

Since the US special operation in which Nicolas Maduro was captured and removed from power, the Venezuelan political landscape has changed dramatically. At first glance, it seemed that any external intervention would harden Chavismo or push it to a fracture or collapse. However, the situation that emerged from these shocking events of January 3rd, 2026, is far from these expectations, yielding an outcome as unexpected as the operation itself..

A week after those events, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) remains in power, without any substantial cabinet change, but with a 180-degree turn in its foreign policy towards the United States. The Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, has been sworn in as the new Interim President, with the approval of the Chavista Supreme Court and the PSUV-controlled National Assembly. The United States now controls Venezuela’s oil sales and is opening the oil exploitation to American and international companies. On the other hand, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, and the elected candidate in 2024, Edmundo González Urrutia, were sidelined from this process by the Trump administration, at least for now.

At this point, several questions arise:

-              Why did Chavismo remain in power even though its leader and his wife were taken away in a stunning and violent manner? 

-              Why were González Urrutia and Machado unable to achieve power? 

-              Why have de facto powers behind Maduro’s presidency so quietly accepted his abduction and Rodríguez’s US rapprochement?

Answering these questions could shed light on the risks that Venezuelan citizens would face in their path toward a potential democratic transition. 

1.        The new scenario

Misunderstood Darwinism has always said that only the strongest survive, but the reality is that adaptation is the most effective strategy for any complex system to overcome stressful environments. As explained in previous articles about the adaptation of Chavist authoritarianism, Maduro’s removal was functional for the PSUV and the Armed Forces’ political and existential survival. 

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, the pressure on Venezuela increased exponentially. Economic sanctions were tightened, and Maduro was accused of being the leader of gangs designated as narco-terrorists, such as the Tren de Aragua and the so-called “Cartel de los Soles”. Based on these allegations, the Trump administration showed its military muscle by deploying the Southern Command Fleet in front of the Venezuelan coast. A de facto no-flight zone was implemented via electronic warfare, culminating in an oil blockade. Despite the tightening noose, Maduro remained confident that a military escalation was unlikely, while mocking and challenging the Trump administration during televised addresses.

According to several press reports, numerous backchannels tried to convince Maduro to leave power and accept a golden bridge to Russia, Turkey, or even Spain among other countries. However, Maduro clung to power, thinking that Trump’s administration would not violate International Law by attacking Venezuela in any way. Nevertheless, the surgical land strikes on remote areas allegedly used for drug trafficking were the first clear sign.

On January 3^rd, 2026, the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve and captured Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Beyond the military details of the operation, the government's response has been far from its anti-imperialist discourse. On the contrary, Delcy Rodríguez assumed the interim presidency by accepting Trump’s conditions. Leaving aside the nationalistic claims and rhetoric, the government of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela decided to comply.

The threat of a follow-up strike could serve as an explanation, but it seems unlikely that such a high level of compliance with these stringent terms, and in such a rapid manner, could have been achieved without being prearranged. The seamless transition suggests that the groundwork for a post-Maduro era had already been laid long before the first boots hit the ground.

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2.        Adapt or die

Complex systems operate at multiple levels, and when external pressure becomes too great, they adjust their priorities to survive. In the Venezuelan case, internal pressure was not enough to oust Maduro from power. Violent repression of civil society and lack of coordination among the opposition factions led to a decade of strategic pendulum. The same actors transitioned from electoral participation to boycotting the election, from negotiations to street struggles.

For almost a decade, María Corina Machado openly called for “humanitarian intervention” while accusing other opposition actors of legitimizing the regime. Today, ironically, intervention has occurred — but without delivering opposition power. For Machado and González Urrutia, moral speeches, winning the election, and demonstrating Maduro’s fraud were not enough to seize the presidency of Venezuela. The hard reality is that, in a very repressive environment, the lack of a power structure, internal regime allies, and capabilities to control the state were the main reasons for being sidelined in this political transition. Machado and her supporters defined the political struggle in Venezuela as a fight between good and evil, and argued that Venezuela was a narcoterrorist state, suppressing any margin of political maneuver.

This rigid conception of politics prevented any kind of rapprochement with any important sector of the regime. By homogenizing all internal actors within the regime as criminals, it burned any avenue of informal communication that could have led to building the capacity to lead a transition.

The Chavist elite, on the other hand, maintained communication with moderate sectors of Trump’s administration. Even though the pressure from the United States was increasing, some government officials were talking with the US. Maduro’s reckless position in late December seems to be the cause of the treason. Facilitating Maduro’s exit allowed Chavismo not only stay in power, but also improve their strategic position, even with a Damocles’ sword over their head. 

Whether fully prearranged or rapidly improvised, the outcome reveals the adaptation capabilities of Chavism to a tutelary power transition. At this point, democratization is far from beginning; this means that ruling elite members will have the opportunity to negotiate better conditions if they want to leave power. 

First, political and existential survival is guaranteed. They keep control over the state and will attempt to maintain as much power as they can. However, the main challenge does not come from outside the coalition, but from the internal tension between political identity and the de facto protectorate situation. 

Second, the less ideological actors within the regime coalition can negotiate their cooperation in exchange for ease or the elimination of any international personal sanction. Their situation does not depend on whether the opposition granted them amnesty or not, but on their own capability to comply with Trump’s transactional agenda.

Third, the military and security forces will be functional for the Trump administration by keeping any kind of insurrectionary or rebellious act from within their own ranks at bay. This means the purge will be internal and not managed by an opposition that is claiming justice and vengeance for their human rights violations.

This is not a regime collapse, but a controlled mutation under external constraint.

3.        Transition, yes, democratization, not yet

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has outlined the administration’s approach of the Trump administration toward Venezuela with a threefold plan. The first phase is stabilization and indefinite control over the oil industry. Washington claims that Venezuela robbed them of oil since the nationalization in the 1970s. Regardless of the lack of veracity of such a claim, the fact is that this is the excuse to seize all production of the country.

The second is ensuring that American, Western, and other oil companies have access to the Venezuelan oil market in a fair way. Also, according to Rubio, this could include a plan for the liberation of political prisoners and opposition exiles for a safe return to the country. There is no further detail on how it would work, but it means a political normalization process. However, the question that remains is how to manage political struggle in a deeply polarized society in which justice over human rights violations and rampant corruption won’t be fully achieved. 

The third phase of Rubio’s plan is transition, without a democratic adjective. This phase should be critical for democratization; this is the phase in which it would establish how the process of access, distribution, and exercising political power will be.

The plan is a model of a transactional transition agenda based on the National Security Strategy adopted by the current administration of the United States. This means that it must overcome its own internal opposition, including from the Republican Party. Also, Trump’s administration is facing domestic challenges that would imply losing control over the House of Representatives, increasing the cost of implementing this plan.

Whether or not Rubio’s plan leads to a genuine democratic opening depends on the Venezuelan civil society's ability to reclaim its voice in an era where the terms are being dictated by those who hold the guns and the oil valves.

The situation remains fluid. The shape of Venezuela’s future will depend less on declared intentions than on how power is renegotiated under tutelage.