Discussion on Venezuelan democracy and leadership challenges (Part 2)

Some people we don't know in the shadows behind Donald Trump, we don't really know what the basis of her relationships with them is. We don't know whether she's acting in the interests of Venezuelans, of herself or somebody else. And that, for Venezuelans, is deeply disturbing. And as I said, that's why they want a real transition. They want a change that will produce a leader who is recognized by the Venezuelans as a leader and not is not simply there at the whim of Donald Trump. Is there any other leader than Machado waiting in the wings? So, of course, there are other democratic leaders. There's a whole host of them. Actually, I met several of them when I was there. There are other people who have status. There are people who've been in politics for a long time. There are. There are people who've been mayors. It's actually a very large movement, the Venezuelan Democratic Movement. It's been there for a long time. It's, it has a deep grassroots backing. And so there are a lot of potential leaders and a lot of potential political parties there. But right now, you're in a strange moment where none of them really have a clear way of acting, because, as I say, it's still a dictatorship. It's still run by the same regime. The police and the security apparatus, the apparatus of repression are all still in place, and you don't have clarity about who's really running it. So there are plenty of people with authority there and plenty of people with ideas. There are a lot of Venezuelans out of the country who have had an important role there in the past as well. They're in Madrid or they're in the United States or elsewhere. So there are other leaders as well. But in order to give them legitimacy, in order to give them status, or they could be mayors or they could be cabinet members, or they could be the president. There has to be an electoral process. There has to be a legitimate process that's recognized as such by Venezuelans. And in the meantime, the majority of Venezuelans would still like to see Machado as their leader. Do we know? I mean, look, there would have to be a popular election in order to know whether she would be the president or not. She certainly, as I said, acknowledged by other opposition leaders as leader. She was certainly the leading figure in the most recent presidential campaign, which, as I say, was in 2024. She was seen when she was first in hiding and then in exile as the sort of leader outside the country and was.