---
title: "Machado Is Back in Lara, and the Powers That Kept Her Waiting Now Claim the Credit"
description: "After seven failed attempts and ten months abroad, the Nobel laureate returns to a Venezuela run by Maduro’s deputy, with no vote set"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-25T17:32:19Z
modified: 2026-10-26T03:09:17Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/machado-comes-home-to-lara-to-a-country-that-still-has-no-el-556633
language: en
tags: ["venezuela", "maduro", "politics", "trump", "diplomacy", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Machado Is Back in Lara, and the Powers That Kept Her Waiting Now Claim the Credit

*After seven failed attempts and ten months abroad, the Nobel laureate returns to a Venezuela run by Maduro’s deputy, with no vote set*

By Jan Sokol · October 25, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/machado-comes-home-to-lara-to-a-country-that-still-has-no-el-556633

## In brief

- María Corina Machado announced on X on 25 October that she was back in Venezuela after more than ten months in exile
- Supporters greeted her at the Church of Santa Rosa in Lara state and in Barquisimeto before she set off for Caracas
- Her party says she was blocked at least seven times from returning, including three times in one day in September
- Rubio credited US-backed reconciliation talks; Trump said he knew nothing about it but hoped she was safe
- Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has stayed past her authorised term, no election date is set, and she did not react at first

On the morning of Sunday, 25 October, María Corina Machado ended her exile with five words of Spanish posted on X: “I am here. With you.” She did not say where she was or how she had got there. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, had been away for more than ten months, and [as CNN put it](https://cnn.com/2026/10/25/americas/machado-returns-venezuela-latam-intl), she came home to a country her ally, the United States, had reshaped without her.

The first pictures came from Lara state, west of Caracas, from the Church of Santa Rosa. The Associated Press, [as CBS News relayed](https://cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-opposition-maria-corina-machado-return/), described dozens of supporters reaching for her hand and embracing her, phones held high to film it. Someone cried “María! María!” Another shouted “Welcome to Venezuela!” A man yelled, “Long live freedom, damn it!” One woman wiped away tears and called it “a miracle.”

In Barquisimeto, according to Reuters, people surrounded her vehicle with flags, shouting “Freedom!”, and some sang the national anthem with her while she greeted them from atop the car. “We want to tell the whole world that María Corina Machado will achieve freedom and democracy in Venezuela. … She will rescue Venezuela,” said Hernán Adames, who is 69. A man running beside her car wept, [the AP reported](https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2026/1025/venezuela-machado-exile-maduro-rodriguez), crying out: “The future of my children is in your hands. Please!” Then she set off for Caracas, stopping along the way.

Something is being asked of her there that no single person can carry.

## The doors that stayed shut

She left in December 2025, slipping out of the country with a private American rescue team. Maduro’s government had barred her from leaving, and it still calls her a fugitive, accusing her of calling for military intervention against Venezuela. She went to Norway to accept the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for promoting democratic rights at home. A month later the American military seized Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York to face criminal charges.

Then she tried to return. Her party counts at least seven attempts. [According to Euronews](https://euronews.com/2026/10/25/maria-corina-machado-back-in-venezuela-after-nearly-10-months-in-exile), it says these came in the past three months, from the United States, Panama and Curaçao. The first was in late June, after the two earthquakes of 24 June devastated the country; she said the government closed its airspace to stop her. In late September, while acting President Delcy Rodríguez was in New York for the UN General Assembly, she was turned away three times in a single day. “She has attempted to enter the country by air and sea but has been turned away each time,” her senior adviser David Smolansky said then. A chartered boat trip was cancelled after its operator declared the vessel “unfit for navigation”; a flight to Curaçao was refused landing permits. Venezuelan authorities have denied blocking her.

Many observers, [RTÉ noted](https://rte.ie/news/world/2026/1025/1596811-machado-venezuela-return/), suspected that Washington had also helped keep her out, given how often Donald Trump has said he is pleased with Rodríguez. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied it. On 1 September he said Machado “has every right to enter her country whenever she wants to return,” while admitting: “We have given her advice. For example, during the earthquake, we had many concerns and will continue to have concerns in the future, but we want her safety to be guaranteed.”

## Everyone opened the door

Once the doors finally opened, everyone claimed to have opened them. Rubio [wrote on X](https://x.com/SecRubio/status/2114414501629964390) that “the conditions allowing for the safe return of Ms. Machado to Venezuela is 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.” He added that Washington “expects the freedoms of all sectors of Venezuelan politics to continue to be respected,” and called on every political actor to back talks he described as “the best chance Venezuela has had in thirty years.” Dinorah Figuera, who leads the opposition bloc negotiating with the government, also credited Maduro’s fall and the talks. The National Assembly, held by government loyalists, said “the restoration of political guarantees must allow all exiles to return to our country.”

Trump, asked about her on Sunday, claimed no credit at all. “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? And I hope she’s safe. She’s a very nice woman. But we’re doing really well in Venezuela.”

A reflection, nothing more: when a power cannot decide whether it was a gate or a gatekeeper, it tends to say it was both.

## A country arranged in her absence

The talks Rubio praises have included several prominent opposition figures. They have left out Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, the former presidential candidate of her movement, who is in exile in Spain. In January, after Maduro’s capture, Trump called her a “very nice woman” but said she “does not have the support or the respect within the country” to lead it. Washington chose Rodríguez instead: Maduro’s deputy, who, by CNN’s account, has met almost every American demand, freeing hundreds of political prisoners, including the [39 released in September](https://rews.cc/a/venezuela-frees-39-more-political-prisoners-after-american-b-5a27bf), and making it easier for American companies to invest. In late August Trump announced that the United States would take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves. Machado asked in a video why that deal was being signed by what she called an “illegitimate regime.”

That regime held on in 2024 after state-controlled electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner, a result experts judged statistically improbable. Now Rodríguez has stayed past the period she was authorised to serve as acting president. At the General Assembly she promised elections and a full democracy, and said Venezuelans would decide the “right moment”. There is still no date. Trump says the country is not ready, and American officials talk first of economic stabilisation.

## The date that does not exist

The week before she came back, Machado urged Venezuelans into the streets and demanded an election date. That is the same demand that has [split the opposition into rival tracks](https://rews.cc/a/venezuela-s-opposition-splits-into-two-transition-tracks-nei-03f6fa). Her party’s international director, Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, said her return is meant to push the country toward a vote. She has hinted she would run. Smolansky called the homecoming “a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections in the near future,” and thanked Trump and his government. González wrote that he would join her “very soon.” “Today is a very important day for Venezuelans,” he said. “Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process!”

Rodríguez said nothing in the first hours. Bloomberg called the return a [test of her regime’s opening](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-25/machado-returns-to-venezuela-in-surprise-challenge-to-rodriguez). The government still officially calls Machado a fugitive. Its acting president has not answered her. The crowd in Lara gave her everything except the one thing it cannot give: a date.

## Sources

- [Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado returns after 10-month exile](https://cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-opposition-maria-corina-machado-return/) — cbsnews.com
- [Opposition leader Machado announces return to Venezuela](https://rte.ie/news/world/2026/1025/1596811-machado-venezuela-return/) — rte.ie
- [María Corina Machado returns to Venezuela after 10 months in exile](https://cnn.com/2026/10/25/americas/machado-returns-venezuela-latam-intl) — cnn.com
- [María Corina Machado back in Venezuela after 10 months in exile](https://euronews.com/2026/10/25/maria-corina-machado-back-in-venezuela-after-nearly-10-months-in-exile) — euronews.com