María Corina Machado Returns to Venezuela After More Than 10 Months in Exile

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado has returned to Venezuela after more than 10 months abroad, announcing her arrival on social media on Sunday and appearing before supporters in the western state of Lara.

“I’m here. With you all,” Machado wrote on X on Sunday morning, in a message that was quickly confirmed by her party and by former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who is currently in exile.

FAKTA

• Who: María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
• What: Returned to Venezuela after more than 10 months abroad
• When: Announced on Sunday, 25 October 2026
• First appearance: Church of Santa Rosa in Barquisimeto, Lara state, western Venezuela
• Background: Machado left Venezuela in December to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway; former president Nicolás Maduro was removed from power by the United States in January
• Current interim president: Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former deputy
• Next step: Machado plans to meet victims of the June earthquakes, families of political prisoners and leaders of the democratic movement, and to press for a date for free and fair elections

Return announced on social media

Machado gave no details of how she entered the country. Within hours, images shared by her press team showed her in central-western Lara state, at the Plaza del Pueblo de Santa Rosa, where she appeared at a church and was greeted by supporters.

According to her party, she went to the church in Barquisimeto to give thanks to the Divina Pastora, one of Venezuela’s most revered images of the Virgin Mary. Crowds pressed in around her, chanting her name.

González Urrutia: “A very important day for Venezuelans”

Edmundo González Urrutia, who ran in Machado’s place in the disputed 2024 presidential election, confirmed her return on X and said he would soon join her.

“Today is a very important day for Venezuelans. Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process!” he wrote.

Machado went into hiding in Venezuela in January 2025 after being briefly detained following a protest, and later left the country in a clandestine escape, reappearing in December in Norway, where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting democratic rights in her country.

Washington responds to Machado’s return

Speaking at the White House on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he did not know anything about Machado’s return, but that he hoped she was safe.

“She’s a very nice woman,” he said. “But we’re doing really well in Venezuela.” Trump has repeatedly expressed support for interim President Delcy Rodríguez and has said it is too soon to consider democratic elections in Venezuela.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that Machado’s safe return was “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.”

“The United States expects the freedoms of all sectors of Venezuelan politics to continue to be respected,” Rubio wrote. “Likewise, we expect all political actors to support these talks.”

What happens next for Venezuela

Machado’s return could reshape the political transition now under way in Venezuela. Her top foreign affairs adviser, David Smolansky, told Reuters she plans to meet victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, as well as the families of political prisoners, the international community and various leaders from the democratic movement.

“She will work proactively for a date for free and fair elections,” Smolansky said.

Her allies have made clear they expect her return to be a step toward a democratic transition and free, fair and verifiable presidential elections. Machado has said she was shut out of the transition talks brokered by Washington, which concluded a third round this week with agreements for incremental reforms but no timetable for a presidential election.

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