Machado returns to Venezuela after 10 months of exile

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado returned to Venezuela on Sunday after being in exile for 10 months.

“Estoy aquí. Con ustedes,” she wrote on the social platform X, which translates to “I am here. With you.”

Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, left the country under the protection of a U.S. rescue team last December. She worked to certify Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election results to prove that fellow opposition leader Edmundo González won against President Nicolás Maduro amid allegations of widespread election fraud.

Machado went into hiding following the ensuing crackdown and was blocked three times during a 24-hour timeframe in September from reentering Venezuela.

Opposition party Unidad Venezuela praised her return, sharing a photo on X of Machado embracing tearful supporters as others raise their phones to capture the moment. The party said it was time to unite “toward a democratic, peaceful and orderly transition that allows Venezuelans to fully recover their rights and freely decide their future.”

“Her return must mark a new impetus for the struggle to recover democracy, freedom,........

© The Hill