Maria Corina Machado returns to Venezuela after over 10 months abroad.
Supporters welcomed her as she travelled to Caracas.
Her return comes amid calls for elections and political change.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has returned home after more than ten months in exile, a comeback that comes amid growing calls for elections and political change in the country.
Machado announced her comeback to Venezuela on her social media account by writing, “ I am here. With you.” Opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez confirmed the news in a post on X, saying, “our leader, my dear Maria Corina, is on Venezuelan soil”.
Machado had left Venezuela on a speedboat under the cover of darkness to travel to Norway and accept the Nobel Peace Prize. A month later, in January, the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from the capital, Caracas.
Delcy Rodriguez has served as Venezuela’s acting president since then, with backing from US President Donald Trump. She has worked with his administration on reforms and a deal that would give the US control over more than 65 billion barrels’ worth of Venezuela’s oil reserves.
Meanwhile, Machado appeared at a church service in Lara state on Sunday, where supporters gathered around her, hugging her and holding her hands, according to the BBC.
She later set off for the capital, Caracas, in a convoy accompanied by cheering supporters. More people lined the roads along her route. Machado was seen smiling and leaning out of a car’s sunroof as she arrived in Caracas late Sunday night.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X, “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,” announcing her comeback.”
Rodriguez, acting president, has remained in office well beyond the 90-day term she was allowed to serve after Maduro’s removal. She has not yet announced an election date, despite public calls for a vote and her pledge to do so at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
The US says Venezuela is not ready to hold elections. Earlier this week, thousands of people protested across the country, demanding elections in the opposition’s first nationwide demonstration in nearly two years.
