Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado estimated that Venezuela could hold new democratic elections in less than a year, she told POLITICO, but has not yet spoken with President Donald Trump about starting that process.

“We believe that a real transferring process with manual voting … throughout the process could be done in nine to 10 months. But, well, that depends when you start,” Machado said Tuesday in an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for “The Conversation.”

Her projection comes as leaders in both parties in Congress urge the president to accelerate the process of relinquishing U.S. control of Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January.

But Trump has suggested the U.S. could continue to oversee Venezuela for years, with an eye toward closely controlling the development of infrastructure to extract oil from the country’s vast reservoirs. Trump told The New York Times last month that “only time will tell” how long the U.S. will assert oversight over Venezuela.

Machado, who met with Trump at the White House after Maduro’s capture, said the two did not discuss her estimated time frame for new elections during their meeting. But she explained her optimism for the relatively short window to stand up democratic elections in the country, compared with similar nation-building efforts by America in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration, which took years to fully establish.

“In our case, look, we have a democratic culture, strong democratic culture. We have an organized society. We have a legitimate leadership with huge popular support and our armed forces are also supportive of a transition to democracy,” she said.

Machado also pointed to recent elections in Venezuela, which she said occurred “under very tough circumstances,” as evidence that Venezuelan people will readily embrace U.S.-backed democratic elections.

Venezuela held presidential elections in 2024, which Maduro’s regime said he won, and parliamentary elections in 2025. Independent monitors criticized the elections as being neither free nor fair.

“If we were able to do that under such extreme conditions, imagine now, when we have the support of the United States government, when people feel that we are not alone,” she said.

Listen to the whole interview on the latest episode of “The Conversation.”