Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has returned to Venezuela after 10 months abroad, in a homecoming that has revived pressure for a presidential election. Her first public appearance was at the church of Santa Rosa in Barquisimeto, in the western state of Lara.
Machado announced her return on social media on October 25, telling Venezuelans she was back among them. Video circulated by her party, Vente Venezuela, showed worshippers crowding around her inside the church.
She had left the country in December 2025 to travel to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize, which she did not reach in time to collect in person. Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the award on her behalf.
Edmundo González, who stood as the opposition candidate in the presidential election of July 28, 2024 and now lives in exile in Spain, confirmed the return and said he would follow her soon. Vente Venezuela called a national caravan with eight stops, Caracas among them.
The Plataforma Unitaria Democrática, the largest opposition coalition, said the return should give fresh impetus to the campaign for a democratic transition. Juan Pablo Guanipa of Primero Justicia said the priorities were political prisoners and an electoral timetable.
No date has been set for a presidential vote. Machado has endorsed July 24, 2027, a date first floated by US Senator Bernie Moreno and since adopted by her party as a demand.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said her safe return was “the direct result” of negotiations backed by Washington, talks that Machado herself has not joined. American officials have argued that economic stabilisation must come before any election.
The European Union has had little visible part in that process. The European Parliament gave Machado and González its Sakharov Prize in 2024 for “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.
EU policy has since pulled in two directions, with the Spanish Government pressing to lift sanctions on acting President Delcy Rodríguez while a large majority of MEPs defends them.
Rodríguez has governed since United States forces removed Nicolás Maduro in January. The former president is on trial in New York.
Restrictive measures against Venezuelan officials, first imposed in 2017, remain in force. EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has signalled she intends to draft a proposal to ease them, though the Council of the European Union has yet to act.
Machado, who toured European capitals while abroad, is barred from public office for 15 years under a ruling she disputes. Whether that ban would hold at any future vote remains untested.
