Opposition leader Machado returns to Venezuela from exile

Kylie Cooper/Reuters/File

After more than 10 months in exile, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado has returned home to a political landscape that has been reshaped by her ally the United States without her involvement.

“I am here. With you,” Machado announced on X Sunday morning shortly before other members of the opposition confirmed her arrival without providing details.

She left Venezuela in December for Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded for promoting democratic rights in her country.

A month after she left, the US toppled her rival, strongman President Nicolás Maduro , and began working with the acting Venezuelan government to steer the country toward a democratic transition and political reconciliation. The process has involved several high-profile opposition figures but has excluded Machado and her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.

Machado had repeatedly vowed to return home and hinted that she would run for president again if an election were held.

In late August, a key member of her inner circle, Omar González, returned to the country after almost three years in exile, in what he called a “prelude” to Machado’s own arrival.

Machado had attempted to re-enter Venezuela seven times over the past few months without success, according to her advisers.

She first tried in late June to help with reconstruction efforts after two powerful earthquakes devastated the country, but claimed the government thwarted her return by closing its airspace.

She tried again in late September while acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, but she was denied entry three times in a single day.

During her more than 10 months away, Machado traveled the world to rally political support from her allies, including US President Donald Trump, to whom she gifted her Nobel Prize.

While the Trump administration has shown support for Machado in the past, it has largely sidelined her from Venezuela’s ongoing political transition.

After ousting Maduro in January, Trump called Machado a “very nice woman,” but claimed she “does not have the support or the respect within the country” to be leader.

Instead, the US has been working with Maduro’s successor , Delcy Rodríguez, to enact political and economic reforms in the country. Rodríguez has met just about every demand from the Trump administration, including releasing hundreds of political prisoners and making it easier for US companies to invest in the country.

In late August, Trump announced that the US had reached an agreement to take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela, a move some consider beneficial for both the US oil industry and the Venezuelan economy. Machado in a video statement questioned why the oil agreement announced by Trump was being signed by the Venezuelan government, which she called an “illegitimate regime.”

The government clung to power in 2024 after state-controlled electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner of the last presidential election, despite experts concluding that such a result was statistically improbable .

Rodríguez at the UN General Assembly vowed that Venezuela would hold new elections and transition to a full democracy, which the US says is the main goal, but the acting government has yet to announce when a vote will take place.

Trump has repeatedly said the country is not ready for elections yet but has insisted that a lot of progress has been made.

Kylie Cooper/路透社/档案照片

在流亡十个多月后，委内瑞拉反对派领导人、诺贝尔奖获得者玛丽亚·科琳娜·马查多回到了祖国，但她发现，她的盟友美国在没有她参与的情况下重塑了委内瑞拉的政治格局。

“我在这里。和你们在一起，”马查多在周日早上通过X电视台宣布，不久之后其他反对派成员也证实了她的到来，但没有提供细节。

她于12月离开委内瑞拉前往挪威领取诺贝尔和平奖，该奖项旨在表彰她为促进委内瑞拉民主权利所做出的贡献。

在她离开委内瑞拉一个月后，美国推翻了她的竞争对手、强人总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗，并开始与委内瑞拉临时政府合作，引导该国走向民主过渡和政治和解。这一进程涉及多位知名反对派人士，但马查多及其盟友、前总统候选人埃德蒙多·冈萨雷斯·乌鲁蒂亚却被排除在外。

马查多曾多次誓言要回国，并暗示如果举行选举，她将再次竞选总统。

8 月下旬，她的核心圈子成员奥马尔·冈萨雷斯在流亡近三年后返回该国，他称之为马查多到来的“序曲”。

据她的顾问称，在过去的几个月里，马查多曾七次试图重新进入委内瑞拉，但均未成功。

6 月下旬，她首次尝试帮助该国进行重建工作，此前该国遭受了两次强烈地震的破坏，但她声称政府通过关闭领空阻止了她的返回。

9 月下旬，委内瑞拉代理总统德尔西·罗德里格斯在纽约参加联合国大会期间，她再次尝试入境，但一天之内被拒绝入境三次。

在离开的十个多月里，马查多周游世界，争取盟友的政治支持，其中包括美国总统唐纳德·特朗普，她将诺贝尔奖赠予了特朗普。

虽然特朗普政府过去曾对马查多表示支持，但它基本上将她排除在委内瑞拉正在进行的政治过渡之外。

1 月份推翻马杜罗后，特朗普称马查多是一位“非常好的女人”，但声称她“在国内没有获得支持或尊重”来担任领导人。

相反，美国一直与马杜罗的继任者德尔西·罗德里格斯合作，在委内瑞拉推行政治和经济改革。罗德里格斯几乎满足了特朗普政府的所有要求，包括释放数百名政治犯，以及简化美国公司在委内瑞拉的投资流程。

8月下旬，特朗普宣布美国已达成协议，将控制委内瑞拉超过650亿桶已探明石油储量的大部分股份。一些人认为此举对美国石油行业和委内瑞拉经济都有利。马查多在一段视频声明中质疑，特朗普宣布的这项石油协议为何要由她称之为“非法政权”的委内瑞拉政府签署。

2024年，尽管专家们得出结论认为这种结果在统计学上不太可能，但国家控制的选举机构宣布马杜罗赢得了上次总统选举，政府因此得以继续掌权。

罗德里格斯在联合国大会上承诺，委内瑞拉将举行新的选举并过渡到完全民主，美国称这是主要目标，但委内瑞拉现政府尚未宣布何时举行投票。

特朗普多次表示，美国尚未做好举行选举的准备，但他坚称已经取得了很大进展。