Who will be exercising the powers of the Venezuelan presidency on 31 December 2026?

TL;DR

Delcy Rodríguez has a 90% chance of exercising Venezuelan presidential power on December 31, 2026. Another Chavista is the main alternative at 5%; María Corina Machado and an unlisted or fragmented outcome are about 2% each, while Nicolás Maduro is below 1%. The key fact is that the transition process is building courts and an electoral authority through December, not preparing a new president to be sworn in by year-end.

Context

Rodríguez is the current de facto president. She appoints ministers and commanders, conducts diplomacy, and issues decrees; on August 11 the TSJ upheld an emergency decree she signed on August 8, after the constitutional temporary-absence window had already expired (Acceso a la Justicia). On August 4, the National Guard commander called for loyalty to Rodríguez and institutional stability, without mentioning Maduro (EFE).

Washington is also supporting continuity. Donald Trump said on July 24 that Venezuela was not ready for elections and that Rodríguez was doing a fantastic job (Reuters). The State Department welcomed the August talks with the interim government as part of a three-stage process of stabilization, recovery and political transition (U.S. State Department). Those talks involve Jorge Rodríguez and Dinorah Figuera, not Machado, and their working timetable puts political-rights work in October, a new TSJ in November and a new CNE in December (El País).

Evidence

The historical prior is strong but not overwhelming. An audit of Archigos 4.1, published in February 2016 and covering 3,409 effective-leader spells from 1875 through 2015, joined to the V-Dem Regimes of the World series with coverage through 2025, found that 345 of 392 authoritarian or hybrid successors who followed an irregular or foreign removal and reached day 230 remained in power through day 360: 88.0%, with a Wilson 95% interval of 84.4% to 90.9%. The tighter foreign-imposition or foreign-removal sample was 275 of 309, or 89.0%, with a 95% interval of 85.0% to 92.0%. The useful lesson is selection: 208 of 600 leaders in the first reference class fell before day 230, but only 47 of the 392 survivors fell before day 360.

Venezuela's case-specific evidence pushes above that prior. Rodríguez removed long-serving defense minister Vladimir Padrino López and installed intelligence chief Gustavo González López, who had already led the presidential guard and military counterintelligence (AP). She later renewed senior commands, and the August National Guard statement shows that at least one core domestic-security branch is publicly normalizing her as commander in chief (EFE). Public pledges do not prove private loyalty, but there is no visible rival command center.

The ordinary Machado path is almost closed for this deadline. Machado said in a May 8 interview that a credible vote would require seven to nine months of technical preparation, including a new voter register, external voting, observation and a new electoral council (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung). The live negotiation timetable does not expect the CNE work product until December, and the first August agreement concerned the TSJ and frozen assets, not a presidential-election date (EFE). A Machado outcome therefore needs an extraordinary installation or a sharp U.S. policy reversal, not a normal campaign, vote and inauguration.

Maduro's path is smaller still. A federal judge set his and Cilia Flores's criminal trial for June 1, 2027, and Maduro remained in U.S. custody at the July 22 hearing (Reuters). Even a favorable pretrial ruling would not by itself return him to Caracas or restore command over the state.

The main tail is an internal Chavista replacement. AP documented open fractures over Rodríguez's pro-U.S. economic turn and the weak campaign to free Maduro, but the dissent was criticism rather than an organized bid for power (AP). Diosdado Cabello still controls the Interior Ministry and coercive networks, while Jorge Rodríguez presides over the National Assembly and leads the government side of the talks (El País). That makes another Chavista more plausible than Machado, but removing a U.S.-backed incumbent would put the coalition's access to money, diplomatic cover and sanctions relief at risk.

Recent unrest raises the tail risk but does not show a civil-war trajectory. Weekly updated ACLED/HDX aggregates, queried on August 23, cover 18 months from March 2025 through partial August 2026. They record 505 political-violence events with 630 reported fatalities and 2,398 demonstrations. The full monthly history is:

*August is partial through August 23. Demonstrations remain far above the 2025 baseline, but political violence and fatalities have not accelerated since May. I read this as pressure on Rodríguez, not evidence that unified executive control is breaking.

For the final number, I combined three views. The historical-survival model contributes 50% at 88.5%, the current-control model contributes 30% at 93%, and the transition-timetable model contributes 20% at 91%. In decimals:

$$0.50 \times 0.885 + 0.30 \times 0.930 + 0.20 \times 0.910 = 0.9035$$

The remaining 9.65% is allocated mainly to a palace replacement by another Chavista, then to Machado, an unlisted or fragmented outcome, and finally Maduro.

What's non-obvious

The constitutional argument is less predictive than it looks. Rodríguez passed the initial 90-day limit and the broader six-month window without a public National Assembly extension, yet the TSJ was still validating her decrees in August (AP; Acceso a la Justicia). Under this question's rules, legal invalidity matters only if it causes someone else to take control. So far it has not.

The word transition also misleads. The current process can renew courts, free prisoners and build an electoral authority while leaving Rodríguez in Miraflores through December. The reproducible historical prior is also slightly lower than the neat 90% headline sometimes cited: the clean sample is 345 of 392, or 88.0%, not 252 of 280. Case-specific evidence then moves the forecast back above 90% because Venezuela has no transfer date, Washington favors Rodríguez, the CNE timetable reaches December, and the security institutions continue to obey her.

Uncertainties

• The true balance among Rodríguez, Cabello and González López is opaque. Public loyalty can be strategic, and authoritarian splits often become visible late.
• U.S. policy is unusually personalized. A Trump or Rubio reversal, a secret deal, or Machado's protected return could compress the timetable. I found no public evidence that such a transfer is agreed; that silence is not proof that no private channel exists.
• The Archigos reference class ends in 2015. It is large and auditable, but it misses the last decade and has few close examples of a foreign patron preserving an authoritarian apparatus under a compliant insider.
• The August talks are closed. Public reporting gives milestones but not enforcement terms, side payments, security guarantees or a binding inauguration date. Those details would move the forecast more than another popularity poll.