By Luis Manuel Aguana
To paraphrase the ever-misremembered Tibisay Lucena, the late former president of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), what has happened in Venezuela since January 3, 2026, is definitively irreversible. Many Venezuelan political actors continue to insist on conducting politics "ceteris paribus," as economists would say, as if "everything else remained constant," when in reality everything has changed, unable to shake the idea that Chávez is dead and Maduro is imprisoned in the US.
Tibisay Lucena, or Tiby, as we in the opposition called her, was the author of the terrible phrase "irreversible electoral results" in the final bulletin of all the CNE's manipulated elections. And how could they not be "irreversible," when the outcome was already a foregone conclusion before the polls even opened?
But our official opposition, gathered in the MUD and the co-opted parties—natural cohabitants of the regime in every election since 2004—never questioned the Venezuelan electoral system, becoming its main endorsement before the world, until, due to disagreements with the tyranny, Smartmatic itself, the company that provided the technological systems, revealed the harsh reality to everyone: the electoral results published by the CNE since 2004 (the first year of the implementation of Smartmatic's systems for the Recall Referendum of Hugo Chavez Frías) could be perfectly altered.
“Relations between Smartmatic and the CNE broke down in August 2017. This came after representatives of the firm denounced that there had been manipulation of the voter turnout data in the electoral process of July 30 of that year, in which the members of the controversial National Constituent Assembly were elected. “We estimate that the difference between the actual turnout and that announced by the authorities is at least one million votes,” stated Antonio Mugica, the company's CEO, at a press conference in London at the time.” (see in Spanish, Transparencia Venezuela, Las 3 revelaciones de la demanda de Smartmatic contra el Estado venezolano en el CIADI, in https://transparenciave.org/las-3-revelaciones-de-la-demanda-de-smartmatic-contra-el-estado-venezolano-en-el-ciadi/).
This single statement confirmed the numerous complaints made publicly by Venezuelan electoral technicians, making it clear to the world that no election conducted using Smartmatic's systems in Venezuela was reliable, and that every automated electoral process since 2004 had been a trap set for Venezuelans.
But, although Smartmatic's lawsuit before the ICSID against its former partner was a fight between criminal gangs, it also revealed to the world that the current vote-counting system in Venezuela remains a fraud against Venezuelans: "The lawsuit alleges that Ex-Clé reverse-engineered the voting system implemented in Venezuela to eliminate all anti-fraud safeguards" (see the cited article from Transparency Venezuela). And that system has not changed at all to this day, even though Venezuela is now a state under US tutelage.
Why is all this relevant? Because of the “irreversible trend” of the Venezuelan political situation, with a regime in retreat and a future still undefined. In this context, how and when could elections be held in this country? All this without even considering the political and legal limbo in which the July 28, 2024 elections still find themselves.
All political actors, including María Corina Machado (MCM), have publicly pressured the US government to hold new elections as soon as possible. And the response has been the same since January 4, the day after Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife were extradited to the US: “Rubio says that talking about elections in Venezuela 'is premature at this time'” (see in Spanish, El Nacional, in https://elnacional.com.py/mundo/rubio-dice-hablar-elecciones-venezuela-es-prematuro-momento-n98704).
But suddenly, in the 2026 State of the Union address to the US Congress, former presidential candidate and former vice president of the CNE, Enrique Márquez, appears. He was recently released by the regime after being imprisoned on January 8, 2025, two days before the supposed inauguration of Edmundo González Urrutia on January 10 in Venezuela. Márquez was accused by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello of being involved in a coup attempt in Venezuela: “Cabello said that Márquez was arrested because he was “part of a plot” with which—he asserted—a US citizen of the FBI and the son-in-law of opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, both recently detained, were also involved” (see in Spanish, CNN en Español, in https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2025/01/09/venezuela/diosdado-cabello-acusa-enrique-marquez-intento-golpe-orix).
It is difficult to speculate about Márquez's presence in Congress and later at a meeting with Trump administration officials at the White House. But it is also difficult not to link his appearance to his status as former vice president of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and former presidential candidate, the only one to formally request the regime's Supreme Court (TSJ) "to order the opening of the ballot boxes held under the protection of Plan República, where the July 28th votes were stored, in order to conduct a manual recount and verify the election results," so that the popular vote could be counted "vote by vote." (vsee in Spanish, Crónica Uno, 14-08-2024, Enrique Márquez pide “conteo voto a voto” para verificar resultados del 28J, in https://cronica.uno/enrique-marquez-pide-conteo-voto-a-voto-para-verificar-resultados-del-28j/).
This demand—and many others more—had already been made a decade earlier by members of civil society to the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the political parties grouped in the Simón Bolívar Command (of which Márquez was a part and later a prominent member of the MUD as First Vice President of the National Assembly of 2015), in an open letter to Venezuelan democratic society on the occasion of the presidential elections of April 14, 2013, and they participated in those elections without conditions, ignoring all our recommendations. (ver Declaración de Caracas, 20-03-2013, Carta Abierta en ocasión al 14 de abril, en https://declaraciondecaracas.blogspot.com/2013/03/ante-las-elecciones-del-14-de-abril.html).
It is not surprising that a conversation about the possibility of elections in the country and the state of the Venezuelan electoral system took place at the White House with Enrique Márquez. This individual has been a prominent member of the regime's main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), the party that supported Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU) in the July 28 elections. Apparently, according to the US perception, he could play an intermediary role in the regime-opposition balance that the US envisions for this hypothetical electoral process, which would occur at the end of the "Stabilization" and "Recovery" phases of the Trump-Rubio plan, where the National Electoral Council (CNE) is a key factor.
It is very important to emphasize that, in this call for elections by political actors, including MCM, no one has explained to Venezuelans what happened to the votes cast by EGU in the July 28, 2024 elections, and that, instead of demanding new elections, they should be demanding compliance with the true result expressed in the tally sheets deposited with the Central Bank of Panama. Those who first buried that result—and the president-elect himself—in the eyes of public opinion were precisely the same ones who are now demanding new elections in Venezuela from the US, from within the political opposition.
The media have been speculating that Márquez would be "Trump's candidate" in upcoming elections in Venezuela, forgetting that the US is unlikely to relinquish its imposed tutelage over the country until it has thoroughly eliminated any Castro-Chavista-Madurista deviation from the Armed Forces and dismantled the entire political and economic apparatus that prevents US interests, including its national security, from being fully protected.
In the current political climate of the country, elections in Venezuela could take up the remainder of Donald Trump's presidential term. If the US wants to understand whether or not the electoral system in Venezuela is "reliable," in my opinion, Márquez should be the last person they ask, given that he has supported and accepted this vote-counting system, even as an "opposition" member of the National Electoral Council (CNE), in every Venezuelan election since 2004. The US has the means to find out who the true drivers of genuine elections in this country have been, denouncing the regime's electoral system from the very moment of its implementation.
The regime lost an undeclared war with the US, and what remains of it and the country's sovereignty are under the tutelage and control of the Americans through force. The return of that sovereignty—as we have stated countless times through this medium—should be through the immediate convening of an original National Constituent Assembly, not through elections. And that the genuine representatives of the Venezuelan people be given, through a clean electoral system, the power to appoint a Transitional Government, refound the State, and create a new constitutional text that will usher in a new political era for the Nation. Elections would then be held under the terms of a new Constitution, with the National Constituent Assembly rebuilding the political parties destroyed during 27 years of Castro-Chavista-Maduro tyranny.
Everything mentioned by Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, in his speech at the CARICOM Heads of Government Conference, falls within a space that only corresponds to the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela.: “That country needs to recover from a lot of things, including deep, internal fractures, but also some dysfunction that existed in their economic systems. I say all this to you because ultimately we do believe that a prosperous, free Venezuela who’s governed by a legitimate government who has the interests of their people in mind could also be an extraordinary partner and asset to many of the countries represented here today in terms of energy needs and the like, and also one less source of instability in the region” (see Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the 50th Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, in https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/02/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-at-the-50th-regular-meeting-of-the-conference-of-caricom-heads-of-government/).
It only remains to hope that the political actors understand that the situation after January 3rd is irreversible and that, instead of actively working against it, they collaborate to overcome it as soon as possible. It is time for them to start thinking about the country, about the collective well-being of Venezuelans, a people devastated without having experienced a war, putting their own ambitions on hold. But in Venezuela, unfortunately, that is like plowing the sea, as El Libertador said…
Caracas, February 27, 2026
Blog: TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email:
luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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