The Venezuelan opposition Maria Corina Machado promises to run again for the presidency. When he wants to return from exile
Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela's opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has announced that she intends to run for president again and that she wants to return to her native country before the end of 2026.
María Corina Machado's statements, made during a meeting in Panama with several leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, come more than four months after the surprising decision of the White House to ignore her and collaborate instead with a person loyal to the ruling party in Venezuela, following the capture by the American army of the then president, Nicolás Maduro, reports the Associated Press agency on Sunday, quoted by News.ro.
Machado has been in exile since December 2025, when she came out of hiding where she spent 11 months somewhere in Venezuela and went to Norway, where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado told reporters in Panama City that she and the other opposition leaders present at the meeting remain committed to a democratic transition “through free and fair presidential elections, in which all Venezuelans, both at home and abroad, can vote.”
However, it is not clear when the presidential elections will take place in Venezuela.
US President Donald Trump and senior administration officials have praised Maduro's successor, Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who opened Venezuela's oil industry to US investment at a time when oil prices are rising amid the conflict in Iran.
The Trump administration has also tempered talks on elections, which are mandated by Venezuela's Constitution within 30 days of the president becoming “permanently unavailable.”
The organization of elections under democratic conditions would require between 7 and 9 months of preparation, Machado said. Among the necessary changes are the appointment of neutral electoral authorities, the updating of electoral lists and the possibility for opposition candidates to run without interference from the government.
Machado has emerged as Maduro's strongest challenger in recent years, but his government has barred her from running in the 2024 presidential election, prompting her to choose retired ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia to represent her on the ballot.
Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner just hours after the polls closed, but Machado's well-organized campaign gathered evidence showing that González beat Maduro by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
On Saturday, María Corina Machado said she would run against any other presidential candidate in a “flawless” election. “I will be a candidate, but there may be others, of course,” she said. “I would like to be in competition with everyone, with anyone who wants to be a candidate.”
