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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado returned to her country on Sunday after more than ten months in exile, ending a period in which she had been denied entry on at least seven separate occasions, according to an adviser who spoke in September.
“I am here. With you,” Machado wrote on X. She was photographed attending Mass at a church in the state of Lara, where supporters embraced her and clasped her hands. Her return marks the first time she has been on Venezuelan soil since she left the country by speedboat under cover of darkness in late 2025 to collect the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
A changed political landscape
The Venezuela Machado has returned to is substantially different from the one she fled. In January, US forces removed President Nicolás Maduro from the country; he is currently held in New York facing charges of drug trafficking, weapons offences and torture, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The Trump administration subsequently backed Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as interim president and signed an oil agreement described as offering highly favourable terms to the United States.
Machado’s ability to re-enter the country had been contingent on approval from Washington, which her spokesman David Smolansky indicated had now been granted. “We thank President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the US Government, Congress, and allied governments for their continued leadership and support,” Smolansky said in a statement.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attributed her return to ongoing reconciliation talks backed by Washington. “The conditions allowing for the safe return of Ms Machado to Venezuela is the direct result of the US supported reconciliation talks which has already seen hundreds of political prisoners freed and hundreds of political opposition figures return from exile,” Rubio posted on X. He added that the talks represented “the best chance Venezuela has had in thirty years to peacefully achieve not just a free and fair election but an enduring democracy.”
President Trump, speaking to reporters on Sunday, offered a more detached response. “I don’t know anything about” her return, he said, adding: “I think she’s a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else? And I hope she’s safe.” In January, Machado had visited the White House and presented Trump with her Nobel prize medal, a transfer the awarding committee said could not be made under its rules.
González to follow
Machado’s close ally and former presidential candidate Edmundo González confirmed her arrival in a written statement. “I am thrilled to announce to you that our leader, my dear María Corina, is on Venezuelan soil,” he wrote. “Today is a very important day for Venezuelans. Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process.” González added that he would soon join her in Venezuela to advance the country “toward freedom.”
Machado won an independent opposition primary in 2023 with more than 90 percent of the vote, but the Maduro government barred her from standing in the 2024 presidential election, citing fraud and tax violations she denied as politically motivated. González ran in her place. The government-aligned electoral authority declared Maduro the winner without releasing detailed tallies; the opposition uploaded copies of voting records it said demonstrated González had in fact prevailed.
Machado’s spokesman described Sunday’s return as “a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections in the near future.” She has previously stated she would seek the presidency again if an election were held, though what specific steps she intends to take now that she is back in the country remains unclear.