Interim Leader of Venezuela Promises Elections and ‘Orderly Legal Transition’

Interim Leader of Venezuela Promises Elections and ‘Orderly Legal Transition’ - The New York Times

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Americas|Interim Leader of Venezuela Promises Elections and ‘Orderly Legal Transition’

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/world/americas/venezuela-delcy-rodriguez-unga.html

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Interim Leader of Venezuela Promises Elections and ‘Orderly Legal Transition’

Delcy Rodríguez did not set a timeline for a vote in a speech at the United Nations.

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!A woman wearing a white blazer and black glasses speaks from a dark lectern. She hold papers, with microphones and a glass of water on the podium.

*Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.Credit...Lexi Parra/The New York Times*

By Julie Turkewitz

Reporting from Bogotá, Colombia

Sept. 23, 2026, 9:14 p.m. ET

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Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, used a speech before the United Nations General Assembly to promise that her government would hold a democratic vote, vowing to oversee an “orderly legal transition” after years of authoritarian rule by her party.

“I wish to say the following loud and clear at this General Assembly,” she said on Wednesday evening. “In Venezuela, there will be elections.”

Her appearance before global leaders was the first in-person address of a Venezuelan head of state at the assembly since 2018. Her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, had stayed away from the New York event for fear of arrest. Mr. Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, earlier this year, making Ms. Rodríguez the acting president.

Ms. Rodríguez has since handed enormous power over to Washington, which now controls Venezuela’s finances and significant parts of its resources.

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In her address, Ms. Rodríguez praised a recent oil deal with the United States and called for a resetting of international relations, including a dialogue with neighboring Guyana, a nation with which it has a territorial dispute.

But Ms. Rodríguez used a large part of her time to speak to Venezuelans.

“The world has taught us that some of the most solid democratic transitions of the modern world were not born from fracture or breakdowns but from a transformation spearheaded with iron resolve by institutions themselves,” she said. “This is our inspiration.”

Julie Turkewitz is the Andes Bureau Chief for The Times, based in Bogotá, Colombia, covering Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

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