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María Corina Machado returns to Venezuela after 10 months in exile
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate posted "I am here. With you" on Sunday as she reappeared at a church in Lara state, days after the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years.
Key points
- Machado announced her return on Sunday with the words "I am here. With you."
- She had been out of the country for more than 10 months and failed in several earlier attempts to return.
- Acting president Delcy Rodríguez has not called an election despite promising one at the UN in September.
María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, returned to Venezuela on Sunday after more than 10 months abroad, raising the pressure on the interim government to set a date for elections.
“I am here. With you,” she wrote on social media. Footage shared by the political group Comando Con Venezuela showed her arriving at a church in Lara state, where supporters gathered to greet her. Her team did not say how she had travelled or where she was staying.
Edmundo González, the opposition’s candidate in the disputed 2024 presidential election, wrote that “our leader, my dear Maria Corina, is on Venezuelan soil” and said he would join her very soon. David Smolansky, her senior adviser, called the return “a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections in the near future”.
Machado dropped out of public view after a brief arrest in January 2025 and left the country covertly in December to collect the Nobel prize in Norway. Her team said she made several failed attempts to come back in September.
Venezuela has been run since January by Delcy Rodríguez as acting president, after US forces seized Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Rodríguez has served beyond the 90 days she was authorised to and has not called an election, although she promised one at the UN General Assembly in September. On 22 October thousands marched across the country to demand a vote. The government considers Machado a fugitive and has not commented on her return.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the conditions for her safe return came out of reconciliation talks backed by Washington, which have freed hundreds of political prisoners. President Donald Trump said he did not “know anything about it” but called her “a very nice woman”, adding: “I hope she’s safe.”