Machado Ends Her Exile and Rolls Into Caracas by Night

María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who spent more than 10 months in exile, is back home. She announced it herself on X on Sunday with three words: 'I am here. With you.' It's a return she'd chased for months — and been turned away from repeatedly.

Her reappearance started quietly, at a church in the state of Lara, where photographs showed supporters hugging her and gripping her hands. Then came the caravan. Machado rode toward Caracas through crowds lining the route, and late Sunday night she leaned smiling out of a car's sunroof as the capital swallowed her up. 'Night of reunion in our Caracas,' she posted, tying the moment to the freedom of political prisoners and of Venezuela itself.

The road back wasn't straightforward. An advisor said Machado had tried seven times over a few weeks in late summer to get home and was denied each time, and there were reports the US sat on her return — which Washington denied. Her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo González, confirmed the landing on Sunday, saying he was 'thrilled' and would soon join her in Venezuela. 'Our sovereign voice returns with her,' he said.

The timing matters. Machado left Venezuela in December on a speedboat in the dark to collect the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway. A month later, US forces seized President Nicolás Maduro and the Trump administration threw its weight behind his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in as interim president and later signed an oil deal giving the US highly favorable terms. Maduro now sits in a New York jail facing drugs, weapons and torture charges; he has pleaded not guilty.

Machado's history with Maduro's government is a bruise that never healed. She won an independent 2023 presidential primary with more than 90% of the vote — a contest held outside the official election authority — then got barred from office on fraud and tax violation accusations she called politically motivated. She hid in safehouses before fleeing. In 2024, González ran in her place, and the government-aligned electoral authority declared Maduro the winner without releasing detailed tallies; the opposition posted its own copies and insisted González had won.

A Machado spokesman, David Smolansky, called the return 'a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections,' and thanked Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and allied governments. Rubio credited US-backed reconciliation talks, saying the conditions for her safe return were their 'direct result' and that hundreds of political prisoners had already been freed. Trump, asked about it Sunday, said he didn't know anything about her return and hoped she was 'safe' — adding, 'She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else?' The Nobel committee has said the prize cannot be revoked, shared or transferred. What Machado does next is unclear; she has said she'd run for president again if an election were held.