Venezuela must rebuild the state, not just restart the economy. In a conversation with IQ Latino, the former student leader, National Assembly deputy and political prisoner reflects on the country’s transition, the limits of economic stabilization, the risks of external dependency, and why the June earthquakes exposed the country’s most urgent challenge: restoring a state capable of protecting its people.
By the IQ Latino Editorial Team
Few figures of his generation embody the trajectory of Venezuela’s democratic struggle as personally as Juan Requesens.
A political scientist by training, Requesens emerged nationally as one of the most recognizable leaders of Venezuela’s student movement at the Central University of Venezuela, where a generation of young activists confronted the country’s accelerating authoritarian drift. During the mass protests of 2014, he became one of the most visible voices calling for student mobilization to grow into a broader civic movement for democratic change.
He later entered electoral politics and was elected in 2015 to Venezuela’s National Assembly, representing the state of Táchira. In parliament, he became part of a new generation of opposition leaders seeking to translate civic mobilization into institutional democratic change.
That trajectory came at an extraordinary personal cost.
In August 2018, Requesens was detained by Venezuelan intelligence agents after the government accused him of involvement in the drone incident against Nicolás Maduro. His arrest, the removal of his parliamentary immunity, the conditions of his detention and the proceedings against him drew international condemnation and became emblematic of the broader repression of political dissent in Venezuela. He spent years deprived of liberty, first imprisoned and later under house arrest, before regaining his freedom.
Today, his public voice increasingly reflects not only the urgency of political resistance but a deeper concern with the intellectual and institutional questions that follow authoritarian collapse: legitimacy, state capacity, welfare, reconstruction and the relationship between power and citizenship.
Those questions have acquired new urgency in the extraordinary Venezuela of 2026.
Following the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and the political reconfiguration that followed, Venezuela entered a transition unlike any other in its modern history. Economic reforms accelerated. The energy sector moved rapidly to the center of the new agenda. Foreign investment, oil production, regulatory frameworks and geopolitical stabilization became dominant priorities.
Then, on June 24, two devastating earthquakes struck northern Venezuela.
Requesens did not experience the disaster from a television studio or a political office. He joined hundreds of volunteers, public officials and rescue teams searching for survivors beneath collapsed structures.
The experience changed the terms of the political question.
For Requesens, the earthquakes revealed something that production figures, investment announcements and political agreements could not measure: whether the Venezuelan state had recovered the capacity to protect human life.
In this conversation with IQ Latino, he argues that Venezuela is at risk of pursuing what he calls an “asymmetric reconstruction”—one that restores markets and strategic economic sectors faster than institutions, public services and the infrastructure of citizenship.
His argument is not against economic reform.
It is a warning against mistaking stabilization for reconstruction.
“No political theory remains intact after a scene like that”
IQ Latino — You begin this reflection from an intensely personal experience: participating in rescue efforts after the June earthquakes. What did you see, and how did it change the way you understand Venezuela’s transition?
Juan Requesens — It is difficult to think about politics in abstract terms after an experience like that.
On June 24, two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 struck northern Venezuela. During the days that followed, I joined hundreds of volunteers, public officials, first responders and rescue teams searching for survivors beneath the rubble.
What remains with me is not a statistic. It is a series of images.
Hands digging through concrete and dust. Names repeated again and again from improvised lists. Entire families waiting in silence while a rescuer raised a hand so everyone would stop moving and we could listen for a voice beneath a collapsed slab.
No political theory remains entirely intact after witnessing something like that.
But precisely because tragedy reduces politics to its most essential dimension, it also forces us to ask a different question. When a building collapses, when a hospital stops functioning, or when a government depends heavily on foreign assistance to rescue its own citizens, what is exposed is not only the force of a natural disaster.
What is exposed is the institutional weakness accumulated over many years.
Earthquakes destroy infrastructure. But they also reveal what was already fragile before the earth moved.
That is why I believe the disaster transcends the humanitarian emergency. It became the most severe test imaginable for the Venezuelan state—and, at the same time, a test of the political reconstruction that had begun only months earlier.
“The danger is confusing stabilization with reconstruction”
IQ Latino — What is your central concern about the reconstruction process now underway?
Juan Requesens — My concern is that the transition opened after the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 has so far placed greater emphasis on geopolitical and economic stabilization than on the institutional and social reconstruction of the country.
That does not mean stabilization is unimportant.
Venezuela needs minimum conditions of governability. It needs to recover productive capacity. It needs investment. It needs macroeconomic stability. It needs to reduce uncertainty. It needs to rebuild its energy sector.
All of that is indispensable.
The problem begins when those priorities displace another equally important question: What does it actually mean to rebuild a state?
History teaches us that societies do not emerge from profound crises simply because economic growth returns or political institutions become more stable. The legitimacy of reconstruction depends fundamentally on whether the state can once again protect the everyday lives of its citizens, guarantee rights, create opportunities and rebuild public trust.
That is the deeper challenge facing Venezuela.
IQ Latino — Yet the argument from many economists and investors would be straightforward: without growth, oil revenue and private investment, there are no resources to finance social reconstruction.
Juan Requesens — And there is an important element of truth in that argument.
Economic recovery is necessary. Venezuela cannot finance reconstruction without restoring productive capacity and generating revenue. I am not arguing against markets, investment or economic reform.
The mistake is assuming that institutional recovery will automatically follow economic growth.
It will not.
State capacity is not a byproduct of GDP growth.
A country can increase oil production, attract foreign capital, improve exports and even achieve positive growth rates without rebuilding a functioning judicial system, a professional civil service, effective hospitals, quality schools, reliable electricity, safe roads, emergency services or social protection.
Those things require deliberate political decisions.
They require professional bureaucracies, stable rules, trustworthy courts, competent public administrations, coordination between national, regional and municipal governments, and an institutional culture oriented toward the public interest.
None of that appears automatically because exports increase.
So yes, economic stabilization is a necessary condition. But it is not a sufficient condition.
The danger is confusing stabilization with reconstruction.
The risk of an “asymmetric reconstruction”
IQ Latino — You have developed the concept of an “asymmetric reconstruction.” What exactly do you mean?
Juan Requesens — I use that term to describe a process in which some capacities recover rapidly while others—especially those directly connected to citizens’ welfare—remain behind.
Look at the emerging sequence.
There has been significant movement around energy, mining, investment frameworks, regulatory certainty and macroeconomic stabilization. From an economic perspective, that is understandable. Venezuela cannot finance reconstruction without recovering at least part of its productive and export capacity.
But compare the speed of those reforms with progress in judicial reform, institutional checks and balances, public health, education, social protection, public services or professional public administration.
The difference is striking.
That is asymmetric reconstruction: the economy and certain strategic functions begin to recover while the institutions that determine the daily quality of citizenship remain profoundly weakened.
And this is not merely an administrative problem. It is a political problem.
Democratic legitimacy does not depend exclusively on having new authorities or better macroeconomic indicators. It depends on whether people experience institutions as capable of solving concrete problems in their daily lives.
There is a fundamental difference between rebuilding a market and rebuilding a state.
IQ Latino — So your argument is not that economic reform is moving too quickly, but that institutional and social reconstruction is moving too slowly?
Juan Requesens — Exactly.
This should not be interpreted as an argument for slowing economic recovery. Venezuela has already lost too much time.
The argument is for simultaneous reconstruction.
The recovery of the energy sector must help finance the recovery of public capacity.
Investment policy must be connected to infrastructure.
Macroeconomic stabilization must be accompanied by institutional reform.
Judicial reconstruction cannot wait indefinitely.
Education and healthcare must be treated as strategic national priorities.
Regional and municipal governments must regain real capacity.
Civil protection and emergency response systems must be rebuilt.
The Venezuelan diaspora must be incorporated into a serious strategy for recovering human capital.
And we must restore professional standards in public administration.
We cannot follow a sequential logic that says: first oil, then growth, and perhaps later institutions and wellbeing.
By then, the political opportunity may have been lost.
“Legitimacy is experienced in daily life”
IQ Latino — Your argument places wellbeing at the center of democratic legitimacy. Why?
Juan Requesens — Because legitimacy is ultimately experienced through daily life.
Every political transition contains an implicit promise. Whether it begins through negotiation, elections, an international agreement or—as in Venezuela’s extraordinary case—an external military action that suddenly changes the balance of power, society expects the new order to produce better conditions than the old one.
That expectation is at the heart of legitimacy.
People accept the uncertainty and sacrifice inherent in a transition because they believe present difficulty can open the possibility of a safer, more prosperous and more just future.
So the fundamental question is not only who exercises power during the transition.
The question is: What kind of legitimacy is being built?
There is a difference between legitimacy based on stabilizing the political system and legitimacy based on expanding people’s real opportunities.
The first can sometimes be achieved relatively quickly through agreements among elites, economic incentives or security arrangements.
The second requires functioning institutions, restored rights, administrative capacity, social mobility, public services and confidence that the state will once again act as a guarantor of people’s welfare and dignity.
IQ Latino — Some will hear the word “welfare” and assume you are advocating a return to the oversized, clientelist state that contributed to Venezuela’s crisis.
Juan Requesens — That would be a false choice.
The alternative is not between an inefficient, clientelist, authoritarian state and a society in which the state abandons its basic responsibilities.
Venezuela needs markets.
It needs private investment.
It needs entrepreneurship.
It needs legal certainty.
It needs international capital.
It needs a productive economy that is far less dependent on oil.
But it also needs a capable state.
The question is not whether the state should control everything. It should not.
The question is whether the state can perform the functions that only legitimate public institutions can perform effectively and equitably: justice, public health, education, infrastructure, regulation, civil protection, social insurance, territorial coordination and protection of rights.
Economic growth and social justice are not mutually exclusive.
In a deeply fractured society, sustainable growth requires inclusion and institutional legitimacy.
Washington, power and the risk of outsourced political agency
IQ Latino — The capture of Maduro dramatically altered perceptions of where political power over Venezuela actually resides. How do you understand that change?
Juan Requesens — It changed the political imagination of the country profoundly.
For years, Venezuelan society placed its hopes, successively, in elections, negotiations, protests, international mediation and opposition leadership.
Each failed or frustrated effort gradually eroded confidence in the possibility of producing change through Venezuela’s own institutions.
The U.S. military operation altered that perception almost immediately. It shifted the perceived center of political decision-making toward Washington.
Early public opinion measurements reflected that change. There was broad support for Maduro’s capture and a significant improvement in perceptions of the United States.
But beyond the methodological debate over individual polls, the important point is deeper: a considerable part of the population began to identify the effective capacity to produce political change outside Venezuelan institutions.
That symbolic displacement may be one of the least discussed but most consequential effects of the operation.
IQ Latino — Why should that concern Venezuelans if the external intervention succeeded where domestic efforts had repeatedly failed?
Juan Requesens — Because a country cannot permanently outsource the source of its political agency.
International actors may be decisive. The United States may play a central role. Other democracies, multilateral institutions, investors and humanitarian organizations will all matter.
But the ultimate objective of reconstruction must be to restore Venezuelan institutional capacity and Venezuelan democratic agency.
If citizens come to believe that meaningful decisions about their future are always made elsewhere, then even a transition that produces economic improvements can remain politically fragile.
A democratic reconstruction has to return power, responsibility and trust to institutions that Venezuelans themselves recognize as legitimate.
“The strategic interest of the United States and the democratic interest of Venezuela do not have to be contradictory”
IQ Latino — How do you assess the role of the United States now?
Juan Requesens — The United States has become an unavoidable actor in Venezuela’s present reality. That is simply a fact.
The question is not whether Washington matters. It clearly does.
The question is what kind of reconstruction its influence helps encourage.
If the priority is limited to energy security, geopolitical stability, investment conditions and short-term governability, the result may be a more stable Venezuela without necessarily being a fully reconstructed Venezuela.
But if U.S. engagement also supports institutional reform, democratic capacity, decentralization, justice, education, health, public infrastructure, civil society and the restoration of Venezuelan agency, then the relationship can contribute to something more durable.
The strategic interest of the United States and the democratic interest of Venezuela do not have to be contradictory.
But aligning them requires a broader understanding of security.
A functioning hospital is part of national security.
A reliable electrical grid is part of national security.
Professional emergency management is part of national security.
A credible judicial system is part of national security.
Social cohesion is part of national security.
The ability of citizens to trust their institutions is also part of national security.
The earthquake as a stress test of the state
IQ Latino — Let us return to the earthquakes. What did the disaster reveal that economic indicators could not?
Juan Requesens — Almost everything.
Natural disasters are among the most demanding tests any state can face because they require the simultaneous mobilization of multiple capacities: institutional coordination, logistics, healthcare, communications, infrastructure, security, civil protection, transportation and social assistance.
When those capacities have been weakened for years, the scale of a disaster reveals not only the force of nature but the depth of accumulated institutional deterioration.
That is why I say the earthquake did not interrupt Venezuela’s transition.
It tested it.
For months, the political debate had focused on investment, energy production, sanctions, international recognition and institutional timelines.
Then suddenly the country faced a much more elemental question:
Was the Venezuelan state capable of protecting the lives of its citizens?
That is one of the most precise tests of institutional quality.
Where public administration functions, natural disasters produce tragedy.
Where state capacity has collapsed, they also produce a crisis of legitimacy.
The “infrastructure of wellbeing”
IQ Latino — You use another concept that seems central to your argument: the “infrastructure of wellbeing.” What does it mean?
Juan Requesens — It means the institutions, services and public capacities that transform economic growth into real opportunities for citizens.
Hospitals.
Schools.
Universities.
Electricity networks.
Drinking water systems.
Civil protection.
Transportation.
Justice.
Municipal administrations.
Regional governments.
Social protection.
These institutions shape the daily experience of democracy far more directly than macroeconomic statistics.
For most citizens, the legitimacy of the state is not experienced in financial markets or oil production reports.
It is experienced in whether they can obtain medical care, educate their children, travel safely, access electricity and water, and trust that an institution will respond when they face an emergency.
That is the infrastructure of wellbeing.
And rebuilding it is not charity.
It is state reconstruction.
IQ Latino — Latin America has repeatedly experienced growth without equivalent gains in equality, mobility or institutional strength. Is Venezuela at risk of repeating that pattern?
Juan Requesens — Absolutely.
Latin America has long struggled with the coexistence of insufficient growth, high inequality, low social mobility, weak institutional cohesion and fragile public trust.
That experience should make us skeptical of the idea that growth automatically produces wellbeing.
The real question is not simply how much an economy produces.
It is how economic growth expands—or fails to expand—the effective capabilities of people to build their lives.
Venezuela represents an extreme version of that challenge.
Some monetary indicators may improve. Investment may return. Oil output may rise. Economic activity may recover.
But multidimensional poverty tells a different story because it captures deprivation in public services, healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure and other dimensions of everyday life.
The difference between those measurements is not merely technical.
It reflects two different ideas of what it means for a society to improve.
“A transition cannot become merely an agreement among elites”
IQ Latino — What role should Venezuelan political leaders play in preventing reconstruction from becoming an arrangement among political, economic, military and international elites?
Juan Requesens — We have to broaden the definition of the transition.
A transition cannot be reduced to negotiations among political actors, economic groups, military sectors or international governments.
Those conversations may be necessary.
But they are insufficient.
The central question must be: What kind of state will emerge from this process?
Will it be a state capable of inclusion?
Will it reduce inequality?
Will it expand opportunities?
Will it protect citizens against vulnerabilities they cannot confront individually?
Will it respect political pluralism?
Will it decentralize power?
Will it restore trust in justice?
Will it allow Venezuelans to believe once again that institutions belong to them rather than to a faction?
Those are the questions that will determine whether the transition becomes democratic reconstruction or merely political stabilization.
A generation shaped by resistance—and now confronted with reconstruction
IQ Latino — Your own political generation was shaped by protest, repression, prison and the struggle against authoritarianism. Is that generation prepared for the very different task of rebuilding institutions?
Juan Requesens — That may be one of the most important questions we face.
Resistance and reconstruction require different capacities.
Resistance demands courage, organization, moral clarity and the ability to confront power.
Reconstruction requires all of that, but it also demands technical competence, institutional patience, pluralism, negotiation, long-term thinking and the ability to build systems that survive beyond individual leaders.
A generation can be extraordinarily effective at opposing authoritarianism and still need to learn how to construct a durable democratic state.
We have to be humble about that.
The objective cannot simply be to replace one political elite with another.
If we reproduce the same concentration of power, the same institutional weakness, the same clientelism, the same disregard for professional public administration, then we will not have reconstructed Venezuela.
We will simply have changed who controls the state.
“Optimism cannot become complacency”
IQ Latino — After everything Venezuela has endured, are you optimistic?
Juan Requesens — I believe Venezuela has an extraordinary opportunity.
But opportunities can be lost.
The country has immense resources. It has a global diaspora. It has human talent inside and outside its borders. It has a private sector that survived extraordinary conditions. It has civil society. It has communities that have demonstrated enormous resilience. And it has a population that continues to aspire to democracy and a better life.
But optimism cannot become complacency.
Political reconstruction often fails not because order is never restored, but because societies misidentify what had to be rebuilt.
They confuse economic recovery with state reconstruction.
Market stability with democratic legitimacy.
Investor confidence with citizen confidence.
Venezuela must avoid that mistake.
IQ Latino — If you had to reduce the entire challenge to one question, what would it be?
Juan Requesens — I would ask this:
Will Venezuela’s political reconstruction restore the state’s capacity to care for and protect its citizens?
Because ultimately that is the most demanding measure of democratic reconstruction.
Oil production can recover.
Foreign investment can return.
Macroeconomic indicators can improve.
Political arrangements can stabilize the system.
All of those things matter.
But the June earthquakes offered a lesson that no economic indicator could express with equal clarity.
When the earth moves, narratives disappear.
What remains are the real capacities of a state to protect human life.
Until Venezuela can answer that challenge, its reconstruction will remain incomplete—successful perhaps in stabilizing the system, but still unfinished in what ultimately determines the legitimacy of any democracy:
the capacity to produce wellbeing, protect human dignity and make citizens trust their institutions again.
This interview was conducted by the IQ Latino editorial team and adapted from an extended conversation and written reflections by Juan Requesens. It has been edited for length, structure and clarity.