Temporary is an excellent job description if nobody gets to ask when it ends.

María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday, AP reports. Meanwhile, Washington-backed acting president Delcy Rodríguez has exceeded her initial 90-day term without an election date. A further 90 days required an Assembly extension that never happened. Marco Rubio argues that economic stabilization and rebuilt institutions must precede elections; he credits U.S.-supported talks for Machado’s safe return.

So the opposition leader has made it home. The calendar remains in transit.

The argument for functioning institutions is not silly. An election needs rules people can trust, and a ballot is not magic paper that repairs everything it touches. But a transition needs some way to distinguish preparing the country for a vote from preparing another explanation for why the vote must wait.

Make powerful people uncomfortable.
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Otherwise, temporary becomes a very comfortable form of permanent. You get the office, the authority and the microphone, plus the moral modesty of insisting you are merely holding everyone’s place. It is the political equivalent of a houseguest who won’t discuss a departure date but has strong opinions about renovating the kitchen.

A useful stabilization plan would have milestones people can inspect. Which institutions need which changes? Who decides the conditions have been met? What prevents the people enjoying the interim arrangement from marking their own assignment incomplete forever?

Those are not unreasonable interruptions of diplomacy. They are the difference between a process and a waiting room.

Machado’s return is welcome. It is not, by itself, a guarantee that she or any other opposition figure can compete fairly. Nor does supporting her right to participate require treating her as the country’s inevitable choice. The point is that the choice belongs to Venezuelans, not to whichever outside government finds the current arrangement most manageable.

A transition should eventually transfer something. Preferably the decision.