In 2024, 73 per cent of Venezuelans were living in poverty; little has changed since then. Without a stable, predictable system of law and justice that underpins broad economic and job growth, popular discontent will grow, fuelling social upheaval and instability and in turn generating even greater economic uncertainty.
The potential reintegration of Venezuela’s interim government into the international and multilateral communities offers a historic, but quickly closing, opportunity to build a new consensus among pro-market, democratic voices and support reconstruction of the collapsed economy.
The public mood in Venezuela is hopeful but wary – supportive of political change, but sceptical that the underlying conditions for a stable democratic and economic recovery are yet in place. A January 2026 survey by Gold Glove Consulting found that 83 per cent of respondents were optimistic about the country’s future and 72 per cent believed it was moving in the right direction. Yet this optimism is tempered by impatience and distrust: 68 per cent want presidential elections this year, and 58 per cent believe security has worsened since 3 January.
The public mood in Venezuela is hopeful but wary – supportive of political change, but sceptical that the underlying conditions for a stable democratic and economic recovery are yet in place.
While macroeconomic stabilization may come fairly quickly after the economic disaster of the past, failure to meet citizens’ expectations of economic and job growth and greater opportunities for political dialogue and expression could quickly sour the public mood. This would undermine the immediate economic – but still shallow – gains that have been made since 3 January 2026. At the same time, the focus on legal reforms and guarantees in the extractive sector – to the exclusion of other sectors to date – has left other potentially productive areas of the economy undercapitalized due to higher perceived legal and political risk.
Venezuela’s path to a diversified, non-rentier economy and broad-based prosperity will depend on legal changes protecting property and contract law, on restoring the independence and competence of the judicial system, on measures to provide greater clarity and consistent application of laws or arbitration decisions, and on Venezuela’s re-entry into international capital markets at the appropriate moment.
