The third round of talks between chavismo and one sector of the Venezuelan opposition ended on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, after a week of meetings devoted to political and civil guarantees for a possible electoral process. On the same day, the head of the opposition delegation at the table, former lawmaker Dinorah Figuera, put a tentative date on what she considers the process's final goal: a presidential election "at least by the end of next year".
Figuera made the remark in an interview with the newspaper El Nacional, reported by the EFE news agency. She said she was "optimistic" that the country could return to the polls in 2027, but made the timetable conditional on an overhaul of the voting system first.
"Cleaning up the electoral roll"
"The first thing we must do is clean up the electoral registry, the system," Figuera said, adding that the delegation's advisers have found irregularities in the voter roll. She attached a second condition: that opposition parties recover their ballot registrations, most of which are currently barred, without which they could not field candidates.
She said she expects an electoral report in December, and set the same month as the deadline for appointing the new justices of the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ, Venezuela's supreme court): "by December at the latest". A full renewal of the TSJ was the centrepiece of the first two rounds, held in August and September, alongside the release of Venezuelan gold held in England and the lifting of blocks on internet portals, including news sites.
The chavista-controlled parliament is meanwhile selecting 12 civil society representatives and 11 deputies for the Judicial Nominations Committee, the body that vets candidates for the court's seats.
A table without Machado or González Urrutia
The dialogue began on 14 October and is being driven by the United States as part of its transition plan for Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January. The government side is represented by the administration of acting president Delcy Rodríguez; National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez attended the opening session.
Neither María Corina Machado nor Edmundo González Urrutia is at the table, an absence that defines the process's political reach: what is negotiating is one sector of the opposition, not the whole of it.
Figuera described this third phase as the hardest so far, because the government has struggled to concede. On the government's demand that international sanctions be lifted, she was blunt: "They ask for things we sometimes cannot do; we do not lift sanctions."
On 9 October, Figuera met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington. He praised the "tangible progress" of the first two rounds and urged her to keep advancing on political freedoms and electoral reform.
Pressure from outside the table
The organisations watching the process from outside want more than a change of names. Foro Penal said on 20 October that the TSJ renewal must come with structural change, including the repeal of repressive laws; its vice-president, Gonzalo Himiob, also called for a reform of the Penal Code.
The opposition that is not taking part in the talks has called a national march demanding presidential elections in 2027, Machado's return to the country and the release of 322 political prisoners. Chavismo called a rally of its own for the same day.
As of this edition, no concrete agreements from the third round had been disclosed, nor a date for the next one. The parties had said they would announce new understandings on political and civil rights at the end of this phase.
With information from Infobae, EFE, El Nacional and swissinfo.ch.
