Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has called for elections to be held next year. Speaking at a news conference in Caracas on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said the country’s move toward democracy was “irreversible”.
She also thanked the Trump administration for opening a “floodgate to freedom” by seizing her opponent, former President Nicolás Maduro. The same day, Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, said elections would be held and that her government should oversee a “transition of this magnitude”. Machado dismissed that approach as illogical. Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice-president, did not set a date for voting.
Machado’s return and her timeline for elections
Machado said elections would take place in 2027, but she did not offer an exact timeline. She described the transition as “irreversible, organised, pacific” while standing in front of a slogan that read “Let Us Be Free”.
Also read: María Corina Machado returns home after 10 months in exile
Her return followed several earlier attempts to re-enter Venezuela, which failed. Last year she left the country by speedboat, travelling in darkness to Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. In January, the United States seized Maduro. The Trump administration then backed Rodríguez as leader, and she was sworn in as interim president. She later signed an oil deal that gave the US favourable terms.
It remains unclear what Machado plans to do next. She has previously said she would run for president again if an election were held. Her ability to return was contingent on approval from the Trump administration.
Rodríguez’s conciliatory speech and opposition talks
Shortly before Machado’s news conference, Rodríguez delivered a speech in a conciliatory tone. She said she had “instructed the security agencies that no one be detained without judicial order, except in cases of flagrant commission of crimes”. She also spoke of “the doors being open” to returning exiles and called for dialogue and consensus-building.
Machado said she had received no message or invitation to meet from Rodríguez. She also said she would not personally take part in election negotiations between opposition representatives and the government. She wished those negotiators well, however, and said she hoped the electoral body would be reformed so that every Venezuelan, at home and abroad, could vote.
Thousands of supporters gathered along her route into the capital. Machado said she heard one word repeated by the crowds: freedom. “I come to carry out a task and complete a mandate,” she said.
