Venezuelan Opposition Leader Machado Returns Home—Will the Maduro Government Be Replaced?

[Financial News] María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who fled her homeland last December to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, has returned. Discussions on choosing Venezuela’s next president are now expected to gather pace.
According to the U.S. news agency AP, Machado posted on social media on the 25th (local time), “I am here. With you,” saying that she was in Venezuela. The details of how she returned are unknown. Edmundo González Urrutia, who ran for president as the candidate of Vente Venezuela (VV), the country’s largest opposition party, in Venezuela’s July 2024 presidential election and went into exile in Spain two months later, also posted on social media on the 25th, saying he had confirmed Machado’s return. He added that he would join her “very soon.”
Machado, who was VV’s party leader, had been living in exile since leaving the country last December to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Until recently, she had been staying in Panama.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who received the Nobel Peace Prize medal as a gift from Machado when she visited the White House last January, spoke about her return to reporters on the 25th. “Machado gave me her Nobel Prize. What else can I say?” he said. “I hope she’s safe. She’s a very good woman. But we’re doing really well in Venezuela.”
In an earlier interview with Fox News, Trump stressed that the United States “has total control of Venezuela” and that “every week we’re taking out millions of barrels of oil [from Venezuela].”
On the 25th, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media platform X that “the conditions that allowed Machado to return safely to Venezuela are the direct result of reconciliation negotiations supported by the United States.” He added, “Through these negotiations, hundreds of political prisoners have already been released [in Venezuela], and hundreds of opposition politicians have returned home after ending their exile.”
Foreign media reported that Machado had previously tried to return seven times but was dissuaded by the Trump administration, which had the timetable for a change of government in Venezuela in mind. Rubio had earlier stressed that Venezuela needed to stabilize its economy and rebuild national institutions, including the courts and the electoral commission, before holding an election. But earlier this month, he told reporters, “Machado has every right to enter her own country whenever she wants to return.”
In an interview with the United Kingdom’s Financial Times (FT) on the 9th, Machado argued that a presidential election must be held by July next year at the latest. Venezuela is currently being led by Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president, as acting president after President Nicolás Maduro was taken to the United States in January. AP noted that Rodríguez has already exceeded the legally permitted period for serving as acting president, yet no election date has even been set.
Last September, Trump said of Venezuela’s elections, “They are not ready to hold an election yet.” Rodríguez, who leads the interim government and has shifted to a pro-U.S. stance, agreed. The two countries also reached an agreement giving the United States access to one-fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves.


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