The Venezuelan electoral plan outlined by the U.S. State Department

In a teleconference on October 26, 2026, a “Senior State Department Official” first outlined a clear, actionable electoral plan for Venezuela. 

First, I will explain the plan. Then I will address its compatibility with the Constitution. As I explained here, the plan is based on an accurate diagnosis of the political causes of Venezuela’s collapse and a solid constitutional interpretation. 

The electoral plan 

The plan outlined by the senior official could be summarized as follows:

• Before the end of this year, “we should have a new Supreme Court”. 
• A new National Electoral Council (CNE) will be appointed “very shortly thereafter, and that work is already beginning”. 
• They “will have to declare – Delcy will have to declare a vacancy in the presidency, a permanent vacancy”. 
• Once “you declare a permanent vacancy, that triggers, under their existing constitution, a six-month period for new elections”. 
•   The new and nonpolitical CNE “will then determine the date of that election and when it should happen and when it should be”. 

The plan raises at least two important questions: Why does the electoral reform begin with the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ)? And which constitutional provision establishes a six-month period?

Many other questions remain, particularly about institutional continuity between the current government and the newly elected government. Today, however, I will focus on the most immediate ones.

Why begin with the TSJ?

Venezuela has a non-functional electoral system, plagued with malpractices: unconstitutional political bans, electoral corruption, political persecution, censorship, and a biased electoral management body, among others. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ recent judgment on the 2013 presidential election offers a remarkable summary of these vices. 

The natural solution would have been to appoint a new CNE. The lack of an independent CNE is certainly an electoral constraint. But it is not the binding electoral constraint. 

The binding electoral constraint is the TSJ. 

The senior official accurately explained why. In civil-law countries of the Western Hemisphere, the official noted, “the courts are really the most powerful institution in many – especially for authoritarian regimes.  They use the courts as a way to basically declare anything legal or illegal that they want and to determine all kinds of things in the country”. 

As the senior official put it, the TSJ “has long been an instrument of the regime and Maduro, and 2015 really amped that up.  In fact, it was the TSJ that ruled that the National Assembly was illegal”. Among others, Professors Allan R. Brewer-Carías and Rafael Badell Madrid have explained how the TSJ, under Maduro’s control, undermined the constitutional authority of the IV legislature of the National Assembly, elected in December 2015. 

More recently, as the senior official explained, the TSJ “validated” the rigged and fraudulent proclamation of Maduro as president-elect for the presidential term that began on January 10, 2025, as I explained here. 

The TSJ is part of what Venezuelan scholars call judicial authoritarianism: the ultimate autocratic tool for undermining conditions for electoral integrity. Even a technically competent CNE cannot do its job alongside a biased TSJ. 

Hence, the first step to restore electoral integrity conditions is a new TSJ—a process already underway as part of negotiations between the IV and VI legislatures. 

Of course, beyond restoring the TSJ’s independence, we also need to rebuild the electoral infrastructure, as the senior official explained. I have suggested ten steps to guide this new electoral infrastructure. The recent negotiation sessions between the legislators ended with an initial list of institutional reforms that should be adopted in the coming weeks and months.  

One final comment. The Venezuelan TSJ has six chambers or sections that, in theory, are equal. But one chamber is “more equal than the others”: the Constitutional Chamber. In practice, it is the real apex of the Venezuelan Judiciary. 

Therefore, although renewing the TSJ must result in independent justice, particular care must be taken with the Constitutional Chamber. How this chamber is renewed will determine whether the TSJ has the independence needed to restore conditions for electoral integrity.

The six-month period to call elections

Once the TSJ and CNE are renewed, the interim authorities “have to declare a vacancy in the presidency, a permanent vacancy.  Right now they haven’t done that.  Once you declare a permanent vacancy, that triggers, under their existing constitution, a six-month period for new elections.  And the CNE, this nonpolitical new CNE, will then determine the date of that election and when it should happen and when it should be”. 

This conclusion has drawn criticism because, under one constitutional interpretation, presidential elections should have been called within 30 days. Why six months?

Under the current circumstances, six months is a rational constitutional answer.

Under normal constitutional circumstances, once the presidency has a permanent vacancy, Article 233 of the Constitution requires elections to be called within the next 30 days. That permanent vacancy happened on January 3. Hence, an election should have been called by February 2. 

But the permanent vacancy was never declared. That means that, under normal constitutional circumstances, Maduro’s absence should have triggered a 90-day temporary vacancy, expiring on April 3, according to Article 234. That period could have been extended once, until July 2. Because it cannot be extended twice, the election should have been called within the following 30 days, by August 1. However, the election has not been called. 

However, Venezuela does not have normal constitutional conditions. Since 2016 the Constitution has been de facto abrogated. Therefore, the ordinary framework for covering a presidential vacancy has not been applied. Indeed, it could not have been applied because those provisions were designed to cover vacancies of a duly elected president, and Maduro was not a duly elected president. 

From a constitutional perspective, therefore, the real presidential vacancy began on January 10, 2025. 

In practical terms, however, no permanent or temporary vacancy has been declared since January 3. The Constitutional Chamber crafted an apparent solution to this contradiction (a reminder that this chamber is the regime’s foremost political tool). In an ex officio decision dated January 3, the Constitutional Chamber issued an abusive interpretation concluding that the January 3 event, considered a “military aggression”, created a “forced absence”, not a temporary or permanent one. As a result, the Chamber ordered the Vice President to exercise presidential authority. 

As Professor Brewer-Carías explained, this opinion resulted from an abusive constitutional interpretation. If Maduro had been the elected president (and he was not), the events of January 3 would have created a permanent vacancy, or at least a temporary one. In the worst-case scenario, elections should have been called by August 1.

That is why Delcy Rodríguez is not acting or interim president under the Constitution. According to the Constitutional Chamber, she remains Vice President exercising presidential authority. This solution contradicts Article 233 of the Constitution.  

How to solve this problem? Because Venezuela has a de facto political regime, the Constitution cannot be applied as it was drafted. Under Articles 333 and 350 of the Constitution, we must craft a transitional framework to reestablish the Constitution. 

This is what should happen. Renewing the TSJ and the CNE, and resetting the electoral infrastructure, will create new electoral rules for free and fair elections. Once those objectives are achieved, presidential elections should be called. But when? Read in light of Articles 333 and 350, Article 298 provides the answer: the law regulating the electoral process shall not be modified in any form in the period between the election day and the preceding six months.

Once the new electoral rules are set, and the new TSJ and CNE are appointed, the presidential election should respect this six-month period, designed as a cooling-off period that ensures legal certainty, following the proposal outlined by the senior official. 

Ignoring this period could undermine the purpose of Articles 333 and 350 and increase the risk of a contentious presidential election. That risk must be avoided, because presidential elections are not the final step in Venezuela’s complex transition, but one station. A very important one, but still a station. 

***

The electoral timeline outlined by the senior State Department official is based on an accurate diagnosis and a rational constitutional interpretation. Under this timeline, presidential elections (and not any other election, of course) could be called once the permanent vacancy is declared (eventually by the new TSJ), but respecting the six-month period set by Article 298. From a technical perspective, this timeline allows us to organize presidential elections in 2027.

This cooling-off period will give Venezuelan stakeholders time to keep working on other pending reforms, including institutional continuity between the current de facto regime and the newly elected government.

But that is a topic for another article.