Exiled opposition leader María Corina Machado returns to Venezuela

Nobel peace prize winner’s return after almost a year in exile is unlikely to please interim president Delcy Rodríguez

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has announced she has returned to Venezuela almost a year after she left the country to receive the Nobel peace prize.

“I’m here. With you,” she wrote on X on Sunday lunchtime.

Her close ally Edmundo González, who is in exile, confirmed her arrival. “Venezuela! I am thrilled to announce to you that our leader, my dear María Corina, is on Venezuelan soil,” he posted on social media. “Today is a very important day for Venezuelans. Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process!” he said, adding that he too would soon return.

It was not immediately clear how Machado, 59, had managed to return to Venezuela but footage on social media showed she was in Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara state, which is about 220 miles west of the capital, Caracas.

Images showed her surrounded by supporters holding mobile phones in a church called the Sanctuary of the Divine Shepherdess.

The Trump administration had reportedly opposed Machado’s return, believing her presence would complicate the cosy relationship it has struck up with the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, since abducting her former boss, Nicolás Maduro, in January.

Machado and Rodríguez are arch political rivals.

Machado slipped out of Venezuela last December – a few weeks before Maduro’s capture – and in recent months has reportedly made more than half a dozen failed attempts to return home, including after the devastating earthquake that hit the northern coast in June.

After Maduro was seized, many had expected Donald Trump to give Machado his blessing to take power. Her movement is widely believed to have beaten Maduro in the 2024 presidential election, but he refused to hand over power.

Instead the US president embraced Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice-president, who now governs a country widely seen as a US protectorate.

Machado has repeatedly heaped praise on Trump for launching the operation to remove Maduro, and gave him her 2025 Nobel peace prize medal, which she had been awared for her peaceful challenge to Venezuela’s authoritarian government.

Asked by reporters on Sunday about her return, Trump said: “I don’t know anything about it, but I think she’s a very nice woman. She gave me her Nobel prize, so how can I say anything else?”

“I hope she’s safe. She’s a very nice woman. But we’re doing very well in Venezuela,” he said.