Rubio presses Venezuela to free remaining political detainees

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has urged Venezuela to release its remaining political prisoners, raising the issue during a meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco on Monday. According to the US State Department, the talks also covered reforms intended to prepare the country for free, fair and credible elections.

More than 1,000 political prisoners have been released since US forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro during a military raid in Caracas on 3 January. Maduro was taken to New York, where he faces trial on charges of drug trafficking and torture. Venezuelan prisoners' rights organisation Foro Penal says another 322 people remain detained.

Securing their freedom has been a longstanding priority for opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. She returned to Venezuela on 25 October following almost a year in exile. Relatives of political detainees were among the first people she met after coming back.

Many of the prisoners were detained following the disputed 2024 presidential election. The National Electoral Council, dominated by government loyalists, announced Maduro's victory. However, voting tally copies gathered by the opposition and checked by independent media indicated that the opposition candidate had won. The Carter Center, which deployed independent election observers, concluded that the vote did not meet democratic standards.

A UN fact-finding mission subsequently found that the Venezuelan government had organised severe repression in the months after the election. Its findings described action against people regarded as political opponents, as well as those expressing dissent or criticism of the authorities.

Following Maduro's capture, his loyal vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, took office as interim president. She has support from the Trump administration, but Venezuelan opposition parties have grown impatient with the pace of reform. In its Monday statement, the State Department reaffirmed support for President Donald Trump's three-phase plan, encompassing stabilisation, economic recovery and political reconciliation, followed by a democratic transition.

A week earlier, Rubio told reporters that Venezuela needed to replace its electoral infrastructure before a new election could be valid. He pressed for swift action within the timelines established by the US. Days later, Rodríguez said in a televised address that elections would take place under a renewed electoral authority, without specifying when a vote would be held.

Machado has meanwhile called for elections in 2027. She previously proposed 24 July 2027, the anniversary of independence hero Simón Bolívar's birth, as a possible date. Since then, she has returned to the broader demand for a vote sometime next year.