Yes, Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, is gone, captured by US forces earlier this month. But the government structure that sustained his rule remains firmly in place. Power has not transferred to democratic institutions or to leaders chosen freely by Venezuelans. Instead, it has consolidated around figures drawn from the same inner circle that governed through repression, corruption, and fear.

That continuity is most clearly reflected in the elevation of Delcy Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president and was formally sworn in on Jan. 5 as Venezuela’s acting president. For the majority of Venezuelans, this does not feel like change. It feels like succession and the quiet normalization of continuity.

Some outside observers may be tempted to interpret Rodríguez’s elevation as a signal of moderation or stability. That would be a serious misreading of Venezuela’s political reality. Rodríguez is not a reformer emerging from outside the system; she is a product of it. Democratic legitimacy does not flow from succession or stability but from the freely expressed will of voters.

Democratic elections do not simply materialize because a new figure occupies the presidential palace. History suggests the opposite: Without sustained international pressure, clear conditions, and enforceable consequences, the same machinery that suppressed Venezuelan voters in 2024 will continue to determine outcomes behind closed doors. Genuine democratic choice will require vigilance and leverage to ensure Venezuelans are given a real opportunity to decide their future.

This raises a basic and unavoidable question: Who is really running Venezuela today?

That question has been further complicated by statements from President Trump suggesting that the United States is now running Venezuela or otherwise positioning himself as a central authority in the country’s future. Such rhetoric is problematic. Venezuela is not governed from Washington, and framing the moment as one of external command rather than Venezuelan self-determination undermines international norms and the very principle of democratic legitimacy. Pressure in support of democracy is not the same as possession of sovereignty, and confusing the two risks reinforcing the same patterns of illegitimacy this transition is meant to overcome.

A democratic transition requires dismantling the machinery of authoritarian rule. In Venezuela, that machinery still hums. Of six senior figures named in a US superseding indictment charging senior officials with drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, and related crimes tied to the use of power to illicit networks, , only two, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been removed. Four others remain inside Venezuela, embedded within or protected by the same power structures that enabled impunity.

Those four are Diosdado Cabello Rondón, currently Venezuela’s interior minister and a longtime power broker with control over domestic security forces; Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former interior minister and intelligence chief who remains embedded in the regime’s political networks; Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the former president’s son and a sitting member of the National Assembly; and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom US authorities have linked to the transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua. Together, they illustrate how political authority, security control, and criminal influence continue to overlap within the same governing structure.

Their continued presence underscores the central problem. The architecture of impunity remains intact. Removing the head while leaving the pillars standing does not constitute accountability. Nor does it reassure a population that has lived under fear, scarcity, and lawlessness for years.

Inside Venezuela, the prevailing mood is not celebration. It is anxiety. Hope exists, but it is fragile. The question many Venezuelans are asking is whether this moment delivers real change, or only the illusion of it.