Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado announced on Sunday, October 25, 2026, that she is back in Venezuela after nearly a year outside the country, ending an exile that began when she secretly left to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. “I am here. With you,” Machado wrote on X, in a message that instantly electrified supporters at home and abroad.
A homecoming at the church in Lara
Within hours of her announcement, Machado appeared at the Church of Santa Rosa in Barquisimeto, in the western state of Lara, where her team said she went to give thanks to the Divina Pastora, one of Venezuela’s most revered images of the Virgin Mary. Videos shared by her team showed crowds pressing around her, chanting her name, with some supporters moved to tears as she entered the church wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.
Machado gave no details about how she entered the country, and her spokespeople did not disclose her current location beyond the Lara appearance. Her spokesman, David Smolansky, called the return “a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections in the near future.”
From hiding to the Nobel Prize
Machado, 60, spent more than a year largely in hiding inside Venezuela after being briefly detained following a protest in January 2025, and she was barred by the government of then-president Nicolás Maduro from leaving the country. She secretly left in late 2025 to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway for her peaceful challenge to Maduro’s government. According to sources in her party, Vente Venezuela, she had tried at least seven times to return, without success, before Sunday.
In January 2026, United States forces captured Maduro in a raid on Caracas. His former deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, took over as interim president with the backing of the Trump administration, which has repeatedly said Venezuela must first stabilize before elections are held. Machado has argued that only a “serious, democratic government” can give investors the stability they need.
What Washington said, and what comes next
President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that he had not known about Machado’s return, adding: “I hope she’s safe. She’s a very nice woman.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that her safe return was “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,” adding that the United States expects the freedoms of all sectors of Venezuelan politics to continue to be respected.
Edmundo González Urrutia, who ran in Machado’s place in the disputed 2024 presidential election and whom the opposition and several countries recognized as its winner, confirmed her return on X, calling it “a very important day for Venezuelans” and saying he expected to join her soon. The central question now is whether Machado’s presence on Venezuelan soil accelerates the push for elections, or strains a transition in which Washington has so far backed Rodríguez. Either way, her return puts the opposition’s most recognizable leader back at the center of Venezuela’s future.
Sources: USA Today, Al Jazeera, TRT World
Watch: Videos of María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela and her appearance at the Santa Rosa church
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Lightless Dawn (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0