CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — María Corina Machado has long been the face of resistance to Venezuela’s ruling party, in power for 27 years. Now, after months in exile, she has returned to the South American country to push for a presidential election.
Machado, the opposition leader who prompted millions of Venezuelans to reject President Nicolás Maduro in the 2024 election, reappeared in the country on Sunday. She had left Venezuela in December to travel to Norway, where she was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, and remained abroad, spending time in Washington and touring several countries.
Before leaving Venezuela, Machado had been in hiding since Jan. 9, 2025, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters during an anti-government protest in the capital, Caracas. Weeks after her departure, the United States military captured Maduro in a stunning operation in Caracas.
In December, hours after waving from the balcony of a Norwegian hotel to a cheering crowd gathered outside, Machado told reporters that she would continue the fight for her homeland’s democracy and promised to return soon.
“My return will be when we believe the security conditions are right, and it won’t depend on whether or not the regime leaves,” she said. “It will be as soon as possible.”
‘An eagle does not hunt a fly’
Machado, an industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate, began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
She drew the anger of Chávez and his allies the following year for her Oval Office meeting with then-U. S. President George W. Bush. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.
Her full transformation into a politician would come in 2010, when she was elected to a seat in the National Assembly, receiving more votes than any aspiring lawmaker ever. It was from this position that she boldly interrupted Chávez as he addressed the legislature and called his expropriation of businesses theft.
“An eagle does not hunt a fly,” he responded. The exchange is seared in voters’ memories.
Machado has long aspired to be president
Machado sought Venezuela’s presidency for the first time in 2012, but she finished third in the primary race to be the candidate for the Democratic Unity Roundtable.
The National Assembly ousted Machado in 2014 and, months later, the Comptroller General’s Office barred her from public office for a year, citing an alleged omission on her asset declaration form. That same year, the government accused her of being involved in an alleged plot to kill Maduro, who succeeded Chávez after his 2013 death.
Machado denied the charge, calling it an attempt to silence her and opposition members who had called tens of thousands of people to the streets in anti-government protests that at times turned violent.
She kept a low profile for the next nine years, supporting some anti-Maduro initiatives and election boycotts and criticizing opposition efforts to negotiate with the government. By the time she announced a new bid for the presidency in 2023, her careful messaging had softened her image as an elitist hard-liner, allowing her to connect with skeptics on both sides.
She won the opposition’s presidential primary with more than 90% of the vote, unifying the faction — as noted by the Nobel Prize committee. But ruling party loyalists who control the country’s judiciary kept her from appearing on the ballot, which forced her to throw her support behind former diplomat Edmundo González.
Machado hiked on overpasses, walked highways, rode motorcycles and sought shelter in supporters’ homes as she kept campaigning across Venezuela. Many of her closest collaborators were arrested.
She repeatedly joined thousands of supporters chanting in unison, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” in rallies and asked them to vote for González, a virtual unknown who had never run for office.
Government brutally repressed opposition
González crushed Maduro by a more than a two-to-one margin, according to voting machine records collected by the opposition and validated by international observers. Still, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, loyal to the ruling party, declared Maduro the winner of the July 28, 2024, contest.
People protested the results across the country, and the government responded with full force, arresting more than 2,000 people and accusing them of plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos. Most were released over the following months, but the government simultaneously arrested dozens of people who actively participated in Machado’s efforts.
Some of Machado’s closest collaborators, including her campaign manager, avoided prison by sheltering for more than a year at a diplomatic compound in Caracas, where they remained until May 2025, when they fled to the U.S.
González meanwhile went into exile in Spain after he became the subject of an arrest warrant.
Machado’s brief detention in January 2025 took place as she left a demonstration against Maduro’s planned swearing-in ceremony. Her and González’s inability to stop Maduro from taking the oath of office led to a decline in support for her.
Venezuelans’ trust in Machado has diminished since then, primarily over her unquestioning support for Trump. She gifted him her Nobel medal, even after his administration passed her over and chose to work with Maduro ally Delcy Rodríguez instead.
Machado demands a new election
Machado and her allies have demanded that the Rodríguez government set a date for a presidential election.
After Maduro was deposed, Venezuela’s highest court said Rodríguez could serve as acting president for up to 90 days — an interim appointment that could be extended by the National Assembly for an additional 90 days. But the ruling party-controlled assembly never voted to extend her term which expired in July.
Machado had repeatedly vowed to return to Venezuela and, according to her party, she made seven unsuccessful attempts.
Opposition activists have accused Venezuela’s government of blocking Machado’s return, a claim denied by Venezuelan authorities. Others have also questioned whether the Trump administration has also been involved in the efforts to stop her from returning.
Administration officials deny they are holding Machado back but have said that, on some occasions, they have advised her against returning due to safety concerns.