María Corina Machado returns to Venezuela after more than 10 months in exile
Illustration: Press Pass USAVenezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, announced October 25 that she had returned home after more than 10 months in exile — a move that could reshape the country's ongoing political transition.
"Estoy aquí. Con ustedes," she wrote on X — "I'm here. With you." She gave no details about how she entered the country. Within hours, videos on social media showed her at the church of Santa Rosa in Barquisimeto, in the western state of Lara, where her party said she had gone 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.
Edmundo González Urrutia, who ran in Machado's place in the 2024 presidential election and whom the opposition and several countries, including the United States, recognized as its winner, confirmed her return on X. "Today is a very important day for Venezuelans," he wrote. "Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process!" González Urrutia, who fled Venezuela in 2024 following threats of arrest, said he would join her soon.
Speaking at the White House on Sunday, President Donald Trump said he did not know anything about Machado's return in advance. "I hope she's safe. She's a very nice woman," he told reporters, while suggesting the United States would continue to back interim President Delcy Rodríguez. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that her safe return was "the direct result of the U.S.-supported reconciliation talks which has already seen hundreds of political prisoners freed and hundreds of political opposition figures return from exile."
Machado plans to meet with victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, as well as the families of political prisoners, the international community and leaders from the democratic movement, her top foreign affairs adviser, David Smolansky, told Reuters. "She will work proactively for a date for free and fair elections," he said.
Sources: Reuters (Oct 25, 2026); USA Today (Oct 25, 2026).
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