Nobel laureate opposition leader Machado returns to Venezuela after more than 10 months in exile

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday after more than 10 months in exile. Announcing her arrival on social media, she wrote, ‘I am here. With you.’ It is her first public appearance in the country since December.

Her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo González, confirmed her arrival on X and wrote that he would be next to her very soon. ‘Today is a very important day for Venezuelans. Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process,’ he wrote. ‘You know it, this is until the end.’

In January, a month after Machado left Venezuela to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, the United States seized and deposed the country’s then president, Nicolás Maduro.

After Maduro’s ouster, the Trump administration backed his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez. She was sworn in as interim president and later signed an oil deal with the United States. Venezuela has been run under her leadership since then.

However, Rodríguez has exceeded the time she was authorized to serve as acting president following Maduro’s capture, and no election is scheduled in the country.

Machado’s earlier history is also eventful. She went into hiding in Venezuela for 11 months after being briefly detained following a protest in January 2025. After leaving the country in a clandestine escape, she reappeared that December in Norway, where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful challenge to Maduro’s authoritarian government.

Machado and her allies have been demanding a date for a presidential election in Venezuela, but US officials have emphasized economic stabilization first.

Her homecoming after more than 10 months in exile took place as doubts over Venezuela’s democratic future — and the United States’ role in it — deepen.