Who is really in charge in Venezuela?

Two years after Venezuela’s disputed 2024 election — and months after Nicolás Maduro was removed from power — who is really running the country?

Clionadh Raleigh and Bron Mills are joined by ACLED’s Tiziano Breda to trace how the contested election helped pave the way for Maduro’s downfall and examine the uneasy system that has replaced him. Delcy Rodríguez remains in power, the opposition is still waiting for a transition, and Washington holds enormous leverage over Venezuela’s oil industry.

They also ask what the US actually wants from Venezuela, whether elections are coming, and how June’s devastating earthquakes could upset an already fragile political balance, from fuelling public anger to creating new opportunities for armed groups.

And with billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil revenues reportedly passing through a US-controlled system, one question looms particularly large: where is the money going?

For more conversations like this, subscribe to Conflicts of Interest and watch the full episode on YouTube. 

Conflicts of Interest: https://www.youtube.com/@ConflictsOfInterestACLED

📱 Did you know you can follow Conflicts of Interest on TikTok?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Trump administration has taken over the Venezuelan oil industry, but where's that money?

SPEAKER_02 0:04

The Financial Times came out a few days ago estimating that the number of millions of barrels that have been pumped out of Venezuela over the past six months, the U has would have managed an inflow of around thirteen billion dollars without any transparency as to how these money are being handled.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Conflicts of interest brought to you by ACLED.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Conflicts of Interest. I'm here with the lovely Braun and the very lovely Tiziano Breda, and we are going to talk about Venezuela. It's been two years since the stolen election of Maduro, and we are recording this a little bit earlier in the summer to be released later in order to keep up our flow of information. And with that, I'll let people say hello.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Hi, Kina. It's a great pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

It's always a delight, Titiana. Venezuela is something that's been capturing my attention recently. In the last couple of days, people have been in the news asking a little bit more as to what the US wants for the future, what has happened since Maduro was taken in January. And so looking back to the so-called stolen election, Titiana, it feels like a good place to start. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I'm of the idea that we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for that particular event, which was the 28th of July 2024 election. Because it was the first process after a few years in which most opposition movements decided to take the chances in an electoral process instead of boycotting because of the lack of conditions or even trying to make the world recognize another president on a parallel government, basically the one led by Juan Guaidó at the time. And they only did that because it was the result of a negotiation process that had international mediation between the government and some opposition forces. And a process in which the Biden administration back then had sort of promised to lift some sanctions on the oil sector in Venezuela, in exchange for precisely not a sufficiently free and fair elections under certain conditions, such as the exclusion of Maria Corina Machado, the most renowned opposition figure, and in her stead replaced by Edmundo Gonzalez, a sort of a former diplomat, certainly less charismatic and probably seen as less dangerous by the Chavista government back then. But he also then created the conditions for the opposition to organize a network of observers throughout the country that essentially replaced the electoral authorities, did what the Electoral Council should have done in terms of counting the talists, publishing the vote tells, and essentially proving that the opposition had won by a landslide that election. This whole process demolished Maduro's legitimacy in the region and essentially isolated him even vis-a-vis more ideologically aligned governments such as Petro and Colombia or Lula and Brazil that had somehow kept defending the Maduro administration, seeing it as a victim of a US blockade under the sanctions. But after those elections, those arguments failed to keep those governments near the Maduro administration. And I think in essence Trump realized that this isolation made Maduro much more vulnerable and would have made it easier to carry out what it did on the 3rd of January this year than to go against a government that was either democratically elected or anyway had some regional backing. So in a way it also proved how the Biden administration's approach to Venezuela, paradoxically, was much more complementary to Trump's than sort of opposite to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I've got some questions first, just to kind of blackle in, because it was an extremely eventful, not always in the way that people wanted, period. But my my first question to you is Has Maduro ever won an election legitimately?

SPEAKER_02 4:03

In 2013. Maduro won that election by a very razor-thin margin. There were calls by then already by some opposition movements that he had stolen that election as well. But overall, the Chavista popular support and the climate in the country still allowed for claims of frauds or irregularities to not have so much strength as they did in 2024. But that was the only time in which he essentially possibly won an election or at least got a significant support by the population. Because the following elections were in 2018, and those were the elections in which the opposition sort of boycotted the process because of lack of conditions, and then came the 2024 elections.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

That's very interesting. So then, okay, so we've got 2023, 2024. Maduro has been in power for between 10 and 11 years, right? So who had gained from that period and who had lost? So who were the supporters of any alternative to Maduro?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Who did let's say benefit from the whole Maduro government was certainly a small circle of allies? The Maduro administration has certainly proven inability to make use of the country's immense resources for the good of the country's population, which was in essence what Chavez had tried to do at a time, of course, in which oil prices were much higher. But in essence, the public policies that Chavez brought forward were meant to balance the enrichment of a certain political class with some improvements in everyday lives of certain of large swaths of the country's population. With Maduro, only the former part remained, so the enrichment of a small circle of cronies and allies, and the country, of course, faced a huge spectacular economic collapse due to the corruption, falling oil prices, and of course, in addition to that, US sanctions. So the amount of sectors that eventually stood to oppose the Maduro administration, first, of course, were the wealthier sectors, if you want, the sort of the business, uh private enterprise sectors. But increasingly so, even the lower classes began to realize that this government was not serving its purposes anymore and they would not benefit from government subsidies, programs, social programs, and so on and so forth. So I think the 2024 elections also proved to or made the ruling party at the PSUV realize that they had lost support even in those very popular, highly populated neighborhoods of Caracas that were their strongholds, they had lost support even in those places. And probably that impacted the thinking of some sectors of the Chavista movement of the need, you know, of certain at least veneer of change in the routes of the country.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

So you're saying that in insisting that he win this election, he kind of built his own coffin because it really exposed all of the ways in which the state had gone awry in the last 10, 11 years. And then we have about six months in which Machado, I believe, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. There's kind of this domestic but also international kind of chase to see where she is and track her down and all of this drama. Meanwhile, Rubio is preparing for what will be the invasion of this and looking for an opportunity. This election provides one, all of these other things are happening. We have a lot of the US activity in and around the maritime area to shoot down these different boats. So, how is the government taking that? And how are the people in Venezuela during that six-month period where everything seemed to just go a bit insane before, of course, the invasion?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Well, I think there was a lot of conversations about how far would the US government go in that sort of pressure policy towards the Maduro administration. Very few believed that it would actually translate into a full-fledged military operation on the country soil of some sort. But it was clear that the combination of sort of lack of legitimacy of the Maduro administration, the US interest in diversifying its energy providers sort of relations, and the need for foreign policy wins and this very sort of more renewed and robust engagement with Latin America, the need to distance the geopolitical competitors such as China and Russia, and so on and so forth, all point to the direction of something happening in Venezuela. I think, and I mean that's some of the conversation that have come up, the resistance of the Maduro administration itself to make significant concessions, the that probably a resistance that he had matured over the years, seeing that he could try and use negotiations, certain concessions as time-buying measures. So the realization that, or the thinking that probably this could work again, also contributed to the picture. Because I would think if Maduro had really given in or even accepted at some point there were talks of Rubio or the US offering Maduro safe shelter somewhere in Russia or Turkey if he just left power and it was turned down as an offer, resistance for Maduro to to give in on certain demands contributed to heightened the tensions and led to those three January events.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Risk of asking a stupid question. It was only sort of last week that you were explaining to me about what was happening in Nicaragua and the kind of decree that there will be no more elections, and then we're reflecting on Venezuela today. How does this stuff happen in Latin America? It seems there's quite significant scandals, if you like, for lack of better word, within the various governments. Practically speaking, how do you steal an election?

SPEAKER_02 9:55

In the case of Venezuela, essentially you have the full control of the electoral authorities, and the electoral council declares the winner, declares the percentage points, and then its website collapses. And to date, I think it's collapsed. There's no IP address for the National Electoral Council in Venezuela. So you don't have any way to prove or to corroborate that the nationwide results match the local counts of polling stations. And that's particularly blatant and really absurd in a country in which actually the voting system is electronic and it's quite precise. There are other countries in the region, such as Nicaragua, in which is much more manual, much more sort of artisanal, if you want. But in a country like Venezuela, the vote telling and accounting was really solid. Then you have the post-election tools to challenge the results, and that's where repression comes in. We wrote about this in the weeks following the elections in August 2024. There were hundreds of anti-government protests demanding for the voter lists to be presented, to be published, etc. And there was a huge repression towards those movements. At least 23 people died, many at the hands of colectivos, which are this basically pro-government paramilitary-style organizations, and the repression then moved on to political leaders of the opposition. So any political leaders, even in the left, such as Enrique Marquez, who challenged the results, who sort of went to judicial authorities to demand a renewed count and so on and so forth, basically faced jail, or was forced to seek shelter in foreign embassy, or was forced to flee the country, basically. And that's how you seal the electoral process.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I must say, artisanal vote counting is my new favorite phrase. So thank you very much for that, Diana. Okay, then let's talk about all of the things that are happening before January 3rd and where people are positioning themselves, because what you get after that point is that Machado does not have a clear direction into power. Instead, Delcio Rodriguez, who you mentioned, must have been part of a little cabal internally that wanted to see Maduro overthrown or or removed. She is engaging with the US secretly in order to be able to do that. So what's going on within the internal power structures to secure whatever there is now from what was their post-election? And why isn't there room for somebody like Machado in that?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

It's a good question, Kina. Uh I mean, we don't have the full, I would say, flow of information on what went on behind closed doors. Telcy Rodriguez has repeatedly rejected claims that she had anything to do with the operation that captured Maduro, even though both her brothers and herself were in contact with Maduro up to very few hours before the operation took place. I think that those stalling elections created some frictions within the Chavismo and probably delegitimized or affected the Maduro's image even within the Chavismo. So in a way prompted some to either facilitate or at least not vehemently oppose any operation that the US may carry out on Venezuelan soil. And that's exactly what happened, right? There were a couple of tiny attempts to sort of fight back at the helicopters that were flying from the US, but essentially the whole Venezuelan military and air defense systems were completely frozen during the attack. So I think on one hand that election created schisms within the Chavismo. On the other, certainly the figure of Maria Conina Machado, even though she had to flee the country and so on and so forth, the Nobel Peace Prize of course revamped her figure. I think the combination of the of that award and the overall support that she joins internally because in essence in the primary elections that the opposition had held in October 2023, if I'm not mistaken, she had gathered, I think, 90% of the votes, uh over 90% of the votes. So she was undoubtedly the most popular figure within the opposition. So and from the road, after sneaking out of the country to get the Nobel Peace Prize, she moved then to Washington, and of course, her lobbying, I think, contributed in a way to keep the Venezuelan political situation on the radar. Having said that, I think there's an understanding in Washington that her figure is really inflammatory. It is divisive, it's certainly the one that creates the most antibodies within the Chavismo. So if they wanted to carry out an operation that prompted certain political change, but did not necessarily prompt a full-scale collapse of the political structure in the country, that would in turn risk triggering chaos, unrest, and even a possible civil conflict with all the armed factions that are still there within the Chavizno. Maria Corina Machado would have been the worst person if he wanted to avoid that, because the rejection at her by some military sectors, the political structure and some economic sectors is still, and in the elites in particular, is still quite high. So that's I think how why she's being kept in the picture. Because they have to do so, because she's the most popular person, but at the same time has tried to be limited in the rigorous that she has to move, actually to go back to the country. She's been prevented from going back, according to reporting, from the by the US itself, and has been excluded by some of the political processes that are going on right now, such as a negotiation that was announced between the National Assembly, whose head is Dadsi Rodriguez's brother, Jorge Rodriguez, and the former head of the National Assembly, the one elected in 2015, which was the democratically elected National Assembly led by opposition parties, and whose head, Dinora Figueira, after a few years, let's say distant from the political spotlight, was brought back to the fold to lead those negotiations instead of Mario y Macha.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

So you also mentioned a phrase here that is my second favorite, which is antibodies. That's such a great way to describe resistance within something. Okay, so are you telling me, right, that Delcio Rodriguez claims that that election was not stolen? Because that would be the only way to justify her own position, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Of course. Well, of course. I mean, publicly the democratically elected president, according to Rodriguez, Tesla Cabello, all the main Chavista political representatives was Nicolas Maduro Morv. But I would think privately, maybe they have a different view.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Oh my god, it's like the US. She's not an election truther.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Well, it never worked for me. If I was to say to my dad, oh, sorry, you can't see my school report, the website crashed. Like that was never good enough.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Well, I mean try to become president of one of these places, Frank.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

But I mean it's the only, as you said, Tina, it's the only way for her to keep her position. Actually, now we're still in even more uncharted territory because supposedly by the constitution, in the absence, which is a very nice term to put it, in the absence of the president, an interim president, like the vice president, can become the interim president for a period of six months before calling for elections.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh right.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

So those six months have expired.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

They have.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

And now we are in uncharted sort of institutional territory.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Okay. And I must say, often I would imagine Latin American governments love their institutions, if only to try to look like they're doing things by the letter of the law. Okay, so you're saying that Delcie Rodriguez is claiming that the election was not stolen, which was the pretext for the US in some ways engaging in Venezuela that then put her in this position. And so she is supposed to then somehow uphold these two truths, that what the US did was in some ways necessary in order to revitalize Venezuela's position with within the global community, but at the same time it was illegal and that she should not move on because Maduro is the true president. What's the rhetoric around the fact that that she hasn't called for elections?

SPEAKER_02 18:11

It's super complicated for her to find the right narrative, not only related to, I would say, the elections, but also related to the relations with the US in general. I mean, the Chavismo is a movement that was built on claims of sovereignty, anti-imperialism, the need for Latin America to diversify its relations and not depend on Washington's will, and so on and so forth. This was further deepened by the sanctions that the US had imposed on several economic areas, particularly the oil sector, in Venezuela, as an attack, a blatant attack by the US through its imperialist uh moves and so on and so forth, a blockade similar to what happened in Cuba and so on and so forth. So, how do you combine that with essentially working so much hand in hand with the US administration, with receiving, you know, the US Energy Secretary, the Defense Secretary, the CIA director, and so on and so forth, and essentially giving away all the economic reforms, shifting away from anything that was done before, because essentially sovereignty means participation of the state-owned Pedevez in oil projects. It means rejection of international arbitration, so to keep further control of any controversy around oil or mining projects, and all the reforms that have been brought forward by Das Rodriguez go in the opposite direction, allowing international arbitrations, allowing private enterprises to make investments jointly, but even unilaterally in certain oil projects. So it's really hard for Das Rodriguez to sell to its space, to the Chavista basis, all the measures that have been taken.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Can I ask then, okay, so I'm wondering then who has benefited from the US invasion and after that within the government? Because it seems to me like what you're saying is that the reason she can't hold elections is because some of the people that she works with closely will be able to use the processes that even they're benefiting from in order to wrestle power from her because of this inconsistency with the story about whether or not this is a continuation of the Chavista movement or a real shift in power, in which case it would need to be opened up more, but also invite the competition that is still within.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

I think the the ultimate goal in essence is to, well, first of all, ensure survival. I mean, that's that's the the utmost priority. And probably in this moment, closer relations and collaboration with the US has been identified as the best avenue to ensure that. Secondly, I would say many of the things that have been done recently, I'm not sure how willingly they have been done and how much they have to do with the a gun pointed at Delcy Rodriguez and other leaders have. Symbolic one, of course. But in a way, the US has proven that it's willing to use its military might to influence political developments in Venezuela, and it's shown a military supremacy that is unmatched. So that the Venezuelan military, if the US wanted, could do nothing even in a second operation or in future operation. So at the same time, it seems to me that they have less little leeway. The third aspect I think that plays into the calculus is try to buy time. So the aim of the Chavismo was if the economy recovers, we understand we don't have any more political and any more social support by the population. But maybe if we can work with the US and this prompts economic recovery, reactivation, new opportunities, return on Venezuelans, this can help diffuse tensions, reduce polarization, and maybe in a latter electoral process, we can stand our chances, particularly if we can keep influencing the candidates. Rights that are allowed and those who are not. But at the same time, another avenue, which could just be we know that Trump has a lot of power right now. There are midterms elections coming. Let's see if we can buy time, give some concessions, but not accelerate too much the transition process and see whether a year from now there's something happens. Iran war goes somewhere, the Trump administration loses badly the midterm and so on, has little or less leeway to take certain foreign policy decisions. And maybe we can go back to repression as a main tool for ensuring our political survival. I'd say these are the sort of issues that are being uh thought through.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Can I issue a series of rapid fire questions and then you can just tell me how how you think? Okay. Will she hold an election in the next six months?

SPEAKER_02 22:49

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Will there be a break in her domestic coalition?

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Harder to respond in a few words. I would say unlikely, as long as the current status quo continues. So with renewed cash flow, increase in oil production, opening to actually a reactivation of the relations with international financial institutions. Probably we'll get to the earthquake afterwards. But the thought of diplomatic relations has not been only between Venezuela and the US. There are talks to reactivate relations with Peru, with Ecuador, with the region at large, and with international loaning institutions that had shut their doors in 2018, around 2019, because of the sanctions, and are now approaching again the government. So if the current status quo means increased oil production, more opportunities for foreign investments, more money coming from loaning institutions, which keeps also stabilizing the country. Of course, we're talking about a vacuum in which the earthquake did not exist. With the earthquake, that introduces sort of an additional challenge, I think, that may alter this whole answer.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I'll get to the earthquake in two seconds here, but will there be a break in her relationship with the US during the Trump administration?

SPEAKER_02 24:00

I would say no. I think her position is extremely intertwined with the relationship it has with the Trump administration. And the US apparently supposedly, I mean, there's no much information, but supposedly is really handling the oil or much of the oil exports of Venezuela, passing the money through treasury-controlled bank accounts and then re-diverting them towards Venezuela. So the leverage is really enormous. So as long as the US keeps considering Del C as the most reliable actor in the country, I don't foresee huge changes in the relationship.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Even if there's a Rubio presidency.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Well, we're talking about two, three years from now, so it's uh it's quite a long shot. With the Rubio presidency, the calculation may change. Of course, the end goal of the US is not 100% clear in Venezuela. I think you could get different answers if you get honest answers from different figures in the US uh administration. Rubio is certainly the one that has promoted more openly this sort of three-phase plan in which there's stabilization, then recovery slash reconciliation, and then it ends with a transition and is working towards that. This process of negotiation that I was referring to that starts on the first of August between the opposition and the government is spearheaded basically by the State Department. But if you ask Trump, of course, I think there's barely been any mention to of elections of any sort. And rather the comments are around how happy he is about the US getting access and control of the oil industry and the mining sector and so on and so forth in Venezuela. So yeah, maybe with the Ruby presidency, there could be room for a change. But that's that's quite a long shot from now.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

One of my last rapid fire questions is whatever support that the Del Cibro Brugues government may have at the moment, has it gone with the earthquake? And what significance will that have for her governing going forward?

SPEAKER_02 25:50

From what we're seeing, the earthquake have exposed the government's lack of preparation, of coordination and articulation among different entities and in essence lack of efficiency in dealing with disaster response. This has fueled anger and I think has contributed to weakening even further the government's image. At the same time, I'm not sure it's played so much into the opposition's hands. Some opposition figures have tried to take advantage of the situation to call for early elections for an acceleration of the transition, failing to understand that most Venezuelans affected by this tragedy. Their priority was to get people out of life of the debris and start to get an answer in terms of reconstruction, for which a transition, an election is not necessarily the most direct tool to use. So it has certainly not played in the government's favor, I would say. It has certainly further increased the US and foreign financial institutions' leverage on the country, so reducing the government's leeway in Turkey and certain decisions internally, but has not strengthened the opposition either, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

So they kind of read this one wrong, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 27:06

I think initially they did. Then there were many calls for for more moderation, which would be actually very much needed in this case, but the polarization is still such that things do not go in that particular way necessarily. But at the same time, much will depend on how it the this process with the Nora Figuera will will evolve. I think it's been relaunched particularly for two reasons, because she's a more moderate opposition figure. Probably the people around her are also in this more moderate sphere, so that negotiation could actually have better chances to lead to some kind of agreements that have less radical terms than the ones that Maria Jolina Machado would request. And at the same time, the perspective of talks, dialogue, some kind of possible agreements that could help the country move forward may also help avoid that this anger that I was referring to translates into demands for change, unrest, and chaos that would actually further complicate the situation.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

I was reading something over the weekend. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this as well, Klina. It to do with the um withdrawal from the International Criminal Court and Venezuela's withdrawal, and then obviously the state saying you know it's outdated and it's not credible or independent and it's not legitimate even. What's the significance of that?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

It's something I was also looking rating on over the weekend. I think the Venezuelan leadership is quite savvy in reading its interlocutors. But probably Maduro was too optimistic about the fact that they would not sort of take the further step in the in the pressure. But I think the Chavista are aware that if they give the right tokens to the Trump administration, they could get things in return. So this was a win-win. I mean, of course, Venezuela has no interest in remaining in the International Criminal Court, which has opened a case against the Maduro government and so the people who were in the Maduro government, and guess what, are the same people who are in the Delcy Rodriguez administration for crimes against humanity, it would be beneficial for them to withdraw. At the same time, they know the US is not particularly fond of the ICC. And at this moment in time, I think they took advantage, they took the visit of Netanyahu to the US as a hook and all the tension that it's creating around the New Orleans mayor, sort of no, calling for his arrest and so on and so forth, knowing that Netanyahu is a key strategic partner of the US in the Middle East. So probably they use that as a hook to take an action that probably they they had hoped to do for a long time. They knew that at this particular moment they would have had the backing of the US.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

So they're not acting like a client state. They also wanted this.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

They did wanted this.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

And I'm trying to ascertain whether any of those issues we spoke about, the internal fissures, the international relationship, the potential election, the earthquake, etc., do any of those look like they are more or less likely to lead to any sort of organized violence within the state? Or is that possibility really null and void?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

That's a the million dollar question, Tina. And I think there's a significant risk that this tragedy indeed fuels the growth of certain illicit economies or at least increases the legitimacy of certain armed actors for different reasons. First of all, because as I was saying, the attention has shifted towards specific areas of the country, less attention, less government resources going there. And these are areas in which illicit economies are already quite buoyant, they're thriving. And this could present an opportunity for the armed groups operating there, particularly even Colombian rebel groups, but also local branes and sindicatos to try and sort of fortify, to strengthen their social control and legitimacy as the ones providing services and economic opportunities and security actually as well, and that the government is failing to provide. And yeah, when you have tragedies of these kinds, the risk is also that there are sort of armed actors that have political connections and try to benefit from the amount of resources that will count in a way, in loans, humanitarian aid, and will try to capitalize on those resources for their own benefit. And so the risks are there. I think they are very evident. We haven't seen any particular shift already in violence dynamics in Venezuela.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Well, I was gonna bring up the podcast that the BBC put out over the weekend because they called it Who Was Really Running Venezuela? And I found their their little blurb that went along with it was quite interesting because it basically says at this moment of acute political and economic uncertainty. The new government is led by Delcy Rodriguez with US oversight, is how they've worded that. And then they say that the Trump administration has taken over the Venezuelan oil industry, but where's that money? And I think that is the the bit for me that should the world be kind of braced, that that is going to result in political violence because people are asking that question, and that money could be life-saving right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah, and that's another great question. I think the Financial Times came out a few days ago with an article estimating that by the number of millions of barrels that have been pumped out of Venezuela over the past six months, the US would have managed an inflow of around $13 billion without any transparency as to how these money are being handled. Um, there was initially this talk said that Rubio said that there was a Qatar-based bank account in which the money would go, and then the US Treasury would decide how much would go to which Venezuelan institutions and for which programs. So this was in a way described for an initial tranche of I think it was around 300 million or 500 million in total dollars. But then since then, there's no information. That's I think the real question. How is that being handled? Luckily, the oil infrastructure has not been affected by the earthquake directly, at least, but of course, some of the infrastructure, the ports have felt consequences. There should be an oversight mechanism, but at the same time, those resources should make available for uh Venezuelan authorities and international organizations working on reconstruction and recovery to deliver more quickly. I don't know where the balance will be, uh, because of course lifting all oversight and leaving all the money from oil in the Venezuelan leadership is not, I think, probably the hopes option for the US and other Venezuelans either, I would say. At the same time, this bureaucratic mechanism in which the US decides where this money should go, which authorities, and so on and so forth. I'm not sure if that's the best mechanism either to provide answers to the affected population. So yeah, certainly more accountability and transparency on that would help also think through ways to make sure that Venezuela gets back on its feet in a reasonable amount of time because it's some damage that is really going to weigh on the country's economy for the coming years, even decades possibly.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

You've been listening to Conflicts of Interest with Professor Cleaner Raleigh, brought to you by ACLED, the world's leading source of political violence and protest data. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and follow us on socials for updates in the meantime.