{"id":1019,"date":"2026-07-22T10:38:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:38:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:38:53","slug":"maria-corina-machados-opposition-in-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=1019","title":{"rendered":"Mar\u00eda Corina Machado\u2019s Opposition in Exile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Venezuela was struck by a series of catastrophic earthquakes this June, the exiled opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado decided that she needed to return home. She had spent nearly six months in Washington, carrying on a frustrating fight over her country\u2019s political future\u2014and her own. But the earthquakes created a crisis too great to ignore. City streets cracked, and buildings were reduced to rubble. Hospitals were overwhelmed. It was estimated that more than a hundred thousand Venezuelans could die.<\/p>\n

Read more Arizona Gubernatorial-Primary Map: Live Results<\/a><\/p>\n

Machado was accustomed to managing difficult conditions. She had made a career in Venezuela as a woman in a macho political culture, and as a wealthy conservative in a place where socialism was the national ideology. She built a following by accusing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of waging a long-running war on his own people, including thousands of arbitrary arrests and killings. In 2024, she led her party to victory in the Presidential election, winning two-thirds of the vote. Rather than cede power, Maduro sent his security forces to attack protesters and round up opponents.<\/p>\n

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After the U.S. military surged into Caracas and arrested Maduro, on January 3rd, many Venezuelans expected Machado to be the country\u2019s new leader. She had worked insistently to secure recognition from the United States and other allies abroad. Just three months before, she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her \u201ctireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.\u201d But, when Donald Trump announced the operation, he did not refer to Machado, or even mention the word \u201cdemocracy.\u201d Instead, he talked about Venezuela\u2019s huge petroleum reserves. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be,\u201d he said. In the interest of stability, Maduro\u2019s Vice-President, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, would be left in charge.<\/p>\n

Observers around the world accused Trump of heedlessly toppling a foreign government, with no plan for the future. Machado, though, was careful not to issue a single criticism. Instead, she commended Trump\u2019s \u201ccourage and vision\u201d and took every opportunity to thank him. After arriving in Washington, this January, she handed Trump her Nobel. In exile, Machado kept working toward a vision of Venezuela that seemed increasingly elusive: a free country, with her as President. The Trump Administration has laid out a three-phase plan, entailing stabilization, recovery, and, ultimately, a political transition. But the Venezuelan government has not yet put forth a timeline for elections, much less shown a willingness to surrender power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After the earthquakes, however, the regime seemed newly vulnerable. Despite its efforts to suppress the media, images of the destruction spread online, along with anguished calls for help. Rescue workers from around the world rushed to Venezuela but found that equipment was outdated and scarce. Fuel was in short supply, and cranes stood idle beside flattened buildings.<\/p>\n

With the regime so ill-prepared, the Venezuelan people were left to gather whatever tools they could to dig their relatives and neighbors from the rubble. From D.C., Machado mobilized teams to set up aid centers. If a hospital needed a computer to read CT scans, or a rescuer was held up at the border, her people would assist. Still, Machado\u2019s phone filled up with desperate calls. \u201cI know that you will help us,\u201d one elderly woman said.<\/p>\n

The morning after the earthquakes, Machado told Secretary of State Marco Rubio that she had resolved to go back. She insisted that it was in everyone\u2019s interest\u2014including the United States\u2019. Though there was no guarantee that the regime wouldn\u2019t arrest her, U.S. officials acknowledged that she had a right to return.<\/p>\n

Early the next day, Machado went to the Manassas Regional Airport, in Virginia, and boarded a small jet with a few aides. She planned to fly to the island of Cura\u00e7ao, then proceed to Venezuela. About an hour into the flight, though, a message came through: the plane was not authorized to land in Cura\u00e7ao. Machado dismissed the message, convinced that it was a misunderstanding. Then, a few minutes later, the pilot got a direct order. The plane\u2019s landing rights had been revoked, apparently under political pressure. They had to return to Manassas at once.<\/p>\n

For Machado, it was another setback in a long campaign. She remains the most popular politician in Venezuela, but she can\u2019t lead unless she goes back. The Trump Administration, which substantially controls the Venezuelan state, seems convinced that her return would deepen the country\u2019s tumult\u2014destabilizing both the regime and the United States\u2019 aims there. \u201cPolitics is a contact sport,\u201d James Story, the former American Ambassador to Venezuela, told me. \u201cThe regime sees Machado as an existential threat. Her return raises the question: Who\u2019s in charge?\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado\u2019s office in Washington sits not far from the White House, in a nondescript building off Connecticut Avenue. When I visited, soon after she arrived in D.C., the office had a transient air. The space belonged to a lobbying group for maritime workers: paintings of sailing ships hung above Chippendale-style furniture. Aside from some placards with slogans for her party, there was no indication of who the new occupant was. \u201cIt\u2019s our shadow embassy,\u201d David Smolansky, one of her advisers, told me, with a thin smile. The office was staffed with longtime Machado aides, who had left families behind in Venezuela. Most had fled the country after the 2024 election, but there were some she hadn\u2019t seen in nearly a decade. Smolansky had escaped across the Brazilian border in 2017, dressed as a priest and carrying a Bible.<\/p>\n

From the office, Machado shuttled to meetings with foreign ministers, Trump\u2019s Cabinet officials, Congress members on both sides of the aisle, and various benefactors. During my visit, she walked down the hallway with Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah of Iran. Trump hadn\u2019t yet declared war on Iran, but the country was roiling with protests, which had been harshly suppressed. Pahlavi and Machado posed for pictures and agreed to issue a joint statement, endorsing the \u201cliberation of Iran and Venezuela from oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado, fifty-eight, wore a red cashmere sweater and black pants; her brown hair hung to her shoulders. In person, as onstage, she tends to talk in absolutes. \u201cI have a mandate from the Venezuelan people to free this country together<\/em>,\u201d she told me. \u201cWe will accept nothing less than full democracy.\u201d Critics had described Trump\u2019s invasion as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. \u201cMy answer is: Well, what is the basis of sovereignty?\u201d she said. \u201cI believe it is the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Caracas, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez had taken pains to project compliance. For decades, she had been a fierce anti-imperialist, earning the nickname La Tigresa. Now she welcomed back American diplomats, and the U.S. flag was hoisted at the Embassy. Declaring a \u201cnew political moment,\u201d she overhauled Maduro\u2019s cabinet and stacked the government with her loyalists. Perhaps most important, she delivered more than seventy million barrels of oil to the U.S. When Trump\u2019s Energy Secretary, Christopher Wright, visited a Venezuelan oil plant, she guided him to a table set with glass flasks full of crude. Wright held one up like a trophy, then gleefully pressed it to his lips.<\/p>\n

Machado\u2019s years in the opposition had taught her that the regime would adapt to nearly any circumstances to remain in power, but she insisted that Venezuelans wouldn\u2019t allow it. Her tone grew defiant as she talked about Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s Presidency. \u201cYou cannot sustain an arrangement in which the entire country is against you. \u2018The people don\u2019t matter\u2019? The people do<\/em> matter, co\u00f1o<\/em>,\u201d she said, slapping the table. (Machado says \u201cco\u00f1o<\/em>\u201d\u2014a favorite curse word\u2014far more than you\u2019d expect from a woman educated by nuns.) \u201cWait until I go back to Venezuela. What are they going to do? Throw me in jail? What are the gringos going to do? Negotiate a transition while I\u2019m behind bars?\u201d Machado flashed a derisive look. \u201cHelp me get there. Otherwise, I\u2019ll swim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado, born in 1967, grew up during an unusually peaceful time in Venezuela. She was the oldest of four sisters, in a prosperous Catholic family. \u201cIt was an excessively protected childhood,\u201d she said. \u201cI always say that I was raised on my grandmother\u2019s lap, because we grew up in her house\u2014one of those very old, big houses, full of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

After decades of dictatorship, Venezuela had become a democracy, and its oil deposits made it the richest country in Latin America. Caracas built sprawling road networks, a state-of-the-art subway system, and towering skyscrapers. Venezuelans became prodigious drinkers of Scotch. Machado\u2019s father, Henrique, was an executive at Sivensa, the country\u2019s largest private steel producer. As an adolescent, Machado was a regular visitor at the plant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 1985, Machado enrolled at the Universidad Cat\u00f3lica Andr\u00e9s Bello, in Caracas. \u201cI went from an all-women school, run by nuns, to studying engineering with only men, and many of them came from humble backgrounds,\u201d she said. \u201cOn the first day of class, I took a desk at the very rear and kept my mouth shut.\u201d Machado ended up becoming a student-government leader, but she never shook the feeling of being out of place\u2014a cockroach at a hen\u2019s ball, in the Venezuelan expression.<\/p>\n

After graduating, Machado went to work at Sivensa. \u201cI came of age with a very clear life project,\u201d she said. \u201cI was going to prove to my father that he never needed a male successor.\u201d Then, in 1992, when Machado was twenty-five and pregnant with her second child, she joined her mother on a visit to a state-run shelter for troubled youth. \u201cWhat we found was a children\u2019s prison,\u201d she said. \u201cTo make matters worse, the center bore my great-uncle\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado quit her job and devoted herself to improving conditions at the shelter, by starting a foundation that would bring in aid from both the private sector and the state. In time, though, she became aware that the real power was in politics. \u201cI\u2019ve always been obsessed with scale,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re working in the private sector or an N.G.O., you can innovate and set benchmarks, but at some point you\u2019re going to need the power of the state to shape public policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, the state was in upheaval. In 1998, a former paratrooper named Hugo Ch\u00e1vez assumed the Presidency and began remaking Venezuelan politics. In an unequal country, he built a following by promising to end poverty and redistribute wealth. At the same time, he installed a patronage system, rewrote the constitution, and repealed term limits. As part of what he called the Bolivarian revolution, he expropriated a wide swath of businesses\u2014including several that Machado\u2019s father had overseen.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, Ch\u00e1vez kept winning elections. As it became clear that his government had rigged the system, Machado founded S\u00famate, a group dedicated to monitoring elections and mobilizing citizen observers. Eventually, she won a seat as a congressional representative, and aligned herself with the opposition, a fractious coalition known as the Democratic Unity Roundtable.<\/p>\n

Among the opposition, Machado was an outlier. She was seen as too strident, too radical to appeal to voters\u2014and she was a woman. \u201cWe\u2019d walk into meetings, and politicians would literally clutch their left ball, because a woman had entered the room,\u201d Magalli Meda, a longtime Machado adviser, said. Machado was also more conservative than her peers, a free marketeer who warned that the country was locked in an \u201cexistential struggle\u201d with socialism. In the 2012 Presidential primaries, she earned less than four per cent of the vote. \u201cShe was seen as a niche politician, representing a sliver of Venezuelan society,\u201d Maryhen Jim\u00e9nez, a Venezuelan political scholar, said.<\/p>\n

Yet her instinct for confrontation captured attention. In 2012, when Ch\u00e1vez was in his third term, he convened the National Assembly for a state-of-the-union address\u2014a daylong marathon, during which politicians wandered out for coffee, cigarettes, and bathroom breaks. Machado, intent on not leaving the room, sat and stared at the President.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At one point, she rose and spoke to Ch\u00e1vez indignantly. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent eight hours listening to you describe a country far removed from the reality that Venezuelan women and mothers are living,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are women, mothers, who go to corner stores and supermarkets and end up fighting over a single litre of milk.\u201d She went on, \u201cHow can you claim to respect the private sector in Venezuela when you\u2019ve dedicated yourself to expropriation\u2014which is to say, stealing?\u201d As boos and catcalls resounded in the room, Machado told Ch\u00e1vez, \u201cYour time is up<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a tense silence, before Ch\u00e1vez said, \u201cYou\u2019re out of your league debating me.\u201d He went on, \u201cYou called me a thief in front of the entire country. But I will not insult you. An eagle does not hunt flies, Congresswoman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e1vez died of cancer in 2013, and his Vice-President, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, a former bus driver, took power in a contested election. Venezuela\u2019s situation only worsened: the G.D.P. plummeted, and inflation rose thousands of percentage points. Armed government supporters took over distributing food, and shortages became part of everyday life. By 2016\u2014the \u201cyear of hunger,\u201d as it became known\u2014the average Venezuelan had lost almost twenty pounds. People fled the country, in an exodus that would eventually involve a fifth of the population.<\/p>\n

Maduro insisted that the crisis was the invention of imperialist \u00e9lites, and dismissed complaints by saying, \u201cEnough with the whining.\u201d What money reached the state\u2019s coffers was distributed among a select few, leaving little to pay for social programs. \u201cThe regime understood that it could only hold on to power through repression,\u201d G\u00e9nesis D\u00e1vila, a Venezuelan human-rights lawyer, said. Pro-Maduro militias terrorized protesters on the streets. Opponents of the government were imprisoned, forced into exile, or banned from public office. Machado\u2019s outspokenness made her a target, and the regime repeatedly threatened to seize her house. Out of concern for her children\u2019s safety, she had arranged for them to leave Venezuela while she stayed behind. \u201cI had to choose\u2014either take care of my children as a mother or serve my country as a congresswoman,\u201d she told me. \u201cThe only way I could do both was by separating from my children.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a legislative session after Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s death, the head of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, demanded that the opposition recognize Maduro as the President. When they protested, a group of chavistas<\/em> attacked. They beat and kicked Machado and her colleagues, while Cabello looked on with a mocking expression. Machado was taken to the hospital for surgery. Afterward, her face was so swollen that her daughter, Ana Corina, could barely recognize her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Finally, in 2015, the opposition had a short-lived victory: it won the National Assembly, securing two-thirds of the seats. Maduro reclaimed control by simply creating a separate legislature of loyalists. By then, Machado had started her own party, Vente Venezuela, and she found herself increasingly at odds with the coalition\u2019s more moderate voices. \u201cShe is a difficult person\u2014authoritarian, intolerant, sharply critical\u2014and she won\u2019t let her arm be twisted,\u201d Margarita L\u00f3pez Maya, a prominent historian, said. In 2017, Machado decided to break away from the coalition. \u201cPeople kept saying, \u2018You\u2019re dividing the opposition!\u2019 \u201d she told me. Yet, she argued, \u201cthe same mistakes were repeated over and over. What was the regime seeking? Money, time, legitimacy\u2014but, above all else, time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following year, Maduro claimed victory in an election beset by fraud. The prevailing sense among opposition members was that they had exhausted all routes to change: political campaigns, hunger strikes, more than a dozen rounds of negotiations. L\u00f3pez Maya described waves of demonstrations that \u201cyielded no tangible results other than deaths in the streets. Each time, the repression grew worse. Venezuelans came to feel that only a powerful external actor could change the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opposition coalesced around the thirty-five-year-old head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaid\u00f3, insisting that he was the rightful President. Trump and Rubio threw support behind the effort. They helped secure funding and international recognition for Guaid\u00f3 and, as the crisis deepened, dispatched military planes with relief supplies to a town across the Colombian border. In response, Maduro sent soldiers to block their entry. The relief effort fizzled, and Trump\u2019s attention drifted away. Soon, Maduro cracked down on Guaid\u00f3\u2019s inner circle, and the opposition submitted to another round of inconclusive talks.<\/p>\n

Machado, who had initially endorsed Guaid\u00f3, watched his unravelling with dismay. In 2020, she issued a public letter, saying, \u201cThe country gave you a task that you\u2019ve been either unable or unwilling to fulfill.\u201d When I saw her in Washington, she talked about what she had learned from the episode. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s movement had secured international help before securing its base, she said, but \u201cwe understood it had to be the other way around\u2014first the legitimacy from the Venezuelan people and then the international support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump apparently took a different lesson from the failed attempt at regime change. \u201cIt weighed heavily,\u201d a longtime operative in U.S.-Venezuela relations told me. \u201cThe Americans thought, We gave the opposition everything, and they still couldn\u2019t govern. We\u2019re not going to make the same mistake again.\u201d<\/p>\n

This January 15th, just after midday, Machado went to visit the White House, with a Venezuelan-flag pin\u00a0on her lapel. She entered through the building\u2019s west side\u2014typically reserved for staff and service personnel\u2014for a closed-door meeting with Trump. Afterward, she joined the President for lunch, alongside Rubio, J. D. Vance, and the chief of staff, Susie Wiles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Machado had an ally in Rubio, who described her as \u201cthe personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.\u201d Their relationship dated back to his time as a U.S. senator representing Florida. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, urged a hard-line response to the chavistas<\/em> and argued that an intervention would serve America\u2019s national-security interests. In the lead-up to January 3rd, his office had been in contact with Machado\u2019s team, which presented a plan for how democracy could be restored after the regime was dismantled. But, when Rodr\u00edguez was installed, he made no public protest. He went on to consolidate his influence in Caracas, becoming known as \u201cthe viceroy of Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the White House, Machado argued that Venezuela was \u201ca country in a state of upheaval, long repressed through fear and terror.\u201d She had told the Administration that she didn\u2019t need money. But, she said, people\u2019s expectations had to be \u201cchannelled in a civic and orderly manner\u201d by assuring them that \u201cultimately this will be resolved through the exercise of popular sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado\u2019s implication was that if she couldn\u2019t stand for election, the country might fall apart. But some Administration officials worried that she didn\u2019t have enough support in the military to hold power. Others thought that she was too uncompromising to reconcile with her enemies. Machado\u2019s most potent argument was her victory in the Presidential elections in 2024. As a parting gesture, she gave Trump a pointed reminder of the campaign: a rosary, one of thousands that her followers had pressed into her hands.<\/p>\n

That campaign season had begun with the opposition in disarray, as the government banned leading candidates. With the national mood desperate, L\u00f3pez Maya said, \u201cMachado\u2019s radicalism became what made her successful.\u201d She travelled the country in a two-car caravan, crawling up on the roof of her car at campaign stops. At rallies, audience members poured out grievances, and she began to share the mike. \u201cPeople would jostle to the front and tell me their stories\u2014things of such intimacy that I kept wondering, How can this person be saying this out loud?\u201d<\/p>\n

For a politician of the center right, Machado\u2019s campaign was surprisingly reminiscent of a guerrilla effort. The regime banned her from running for office, so she designated a stand-in: Corina Yoris, a respected academic who shared her given name. \u201cOur goal was to make people feel that it was still her,\u201d Meda, her adviser, said.<\/p>\n

When the government banned Yoris, too, opposition leaders urged Machado to consider a more agreeable replacement; they\u2019d cleared a list with Maduro officials. Machado refused. \u201cThe regime isn\u2019t going to pick our candidate,\u201d she said. Instead, she selected as her proxy a seventy-four-year-old diplomat named Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia. At campaign events, she carried a poster with Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s image, and declared, \u201cIf you want to vote for me, vote for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maduro disrupted her appearances by seizing sound systems or shutting down electricity. At times, on her way to an event, Machado found heavy machinery tearing up the ground, or tractors piling soil in the road. She learned to get out of her car and walk, and people began following her, clearing the debris with their hands. \u201cThe regime didn\u2019t realize that they were turning it into a collective epic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One day, driving through the western part of the country, Machado stopped at a restaurant off the highway. \u201cA waiter came running over,\u201d she recalled. \u201cHe hugged me and said, \u2018Mar\u00eda Corina, I\u2019m your campaign manager in the village next door!\u2019\u00a0\u201d Perplexed, she asked, \u201cWho appointed you?\u201d The man replied, \u201cI did!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The waiter explained that there was no party office in his village, so he\u2019d started one himself. The encounter inspired an idea: the creation of comanditos<\/em>, small units of citizens that could serve as informal party representatives. Machado\u2019s team wound up registering nearly seventy thousand such groups. At campaign stops, Machado encouraged people to announce the names that they\u2019d selected for their comanditos<\/em>. In conservative places like M\u00e9rida, the names tended toward Holy Virgin and the Trinity. Then, Machado recalled, she showed up at Maracaibo, where the locals are famously profane. \u201cAnd it was Son of the Big Bitch! I\u2019d tell them, \u2018Co\u00f1o<\/em>, I can\u2019t say these names\u2014not during children\u2019s hours.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The End of the Aqueduct Racetrack<\/a><\/p>\n

As election day approached, the regime ordered the leaders of Machado\u2019s campaign to be arrested for plotting against the government, and a group of them took refuge at the Argentinean Embassy. One was Humberto Villalobos, an authority on the regime\u2019s subversion of electoral systems who had been tasked with figuring out how to expose Maduro\u2019s tactics. \u201cFraud leaves traces,\u201d he told me. \u201cIf you know what to look for, you can build a stronger defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Venezuelan elections, each voting machine prints out an acta<\/em>\u2014a document enumerating the votes cast for each candidate. By law, candidates are allowed to register one electoral witness per voting machine, and each is entitled to an acta<\/em>. Villalobos\u2019s team concocted a plan: every witness would pass her acta<\/em> to an accomplice, who\u2019d snap a photograph to send to Machado\u2019s headquarters. A driver would convey the acta<\/em> to an intermediary, who would take it to a safe location, where a team with a generator and a scanner could make a high-definition copy.<\/p>\n

The project was dubbed \u201c600K,\u201d for the number of people who would have to take part. At trainings\u2014held online, and in kitchens, basements, and alleyways\u2014people were taught what to do if they were denied an acta<\/em>, and how to handle the militares<\/em> guarding the premises. Everyone\u2019s identity was kept anonymous. Only a handful of people knew the full details of the operation.<\/p>\n

Villalobos asked Machado for one big purchase: a hundred and sixty Starlink antennas. The antennas represented a quarter of the campaign budget at the time\u2014but, Villalobos noted, vast areas of Venezuela did not have a reliable internet signal. Antennas were bought in Caracas, or smuggled in from Colombia, packed in with produce and livestock on trucks or hidden in suitcases on buses. They were shipped across the country, under the name of Jos\u00e9 Gregorio Hern\u00e1ndez\u2014a Venezuelan saint and a common name on the voter rolls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On election day, staffers gathered at Machado\u2019s campaign headquarters, a small brick house known as El Bejucal. When the polls closed, at six o\u2019clock, thousands of actas<\/em> started pouring in. Less than an hour later, though, the flow dwindled to a trickle. \u201cWhat the hell is going on?\u201d a campaign staffer said.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, witnesses were being denied access to the actas<\/em>, and in some cases violently ejected. At midnight, the regime made a pronouncement: Maduro had won, with fifty-one per cent of the vote. No precinct-level results or specific vote counts were released. Machado rushed out a statement: \u201cVenezuela has a new President-elect, and it is Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia,\u201d she said. \u201cWe will defend the truth.\u201d Then she picked up the phone to rally people trying to retrieve the actas<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, the doorbell rang at El Bejucal. On the doorstep, a visibly shaken visitor said, \u201cNo one can know that I\u2019m here.\u201d The person described being at the National Electoral Council offices when votes were being counted, and said that, as the opposition\u2019s numbers increased, \u201cthey shut everything down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the 600K conspirators kept working, at times with help from the militares<\/em>. Early the next morning, the number of submitted actas<\/em> began to rise. The count would eventually surpass eighty per cent\u2014a mathematical point of no return. Even if Maduro won every remaining vote, the opposition could still prove a landslide victory. Soon, Machado shared the results online, and urged people to take to the streets and denounce the regime\u2019s fraud.<\/p>\n

By then, though, Maduro\u2019s armed loyalists had begun delivering on his promise to unleash a \u201cbloodbath\u201d if he lost. Thousands of people were arrested, beaten, or killed. As Machado led a demonstration in Caracas, a member of her team approached. The regime was investigating the opposition, and rumors were swirling that Machado would be arrested. \u201cYou need to go into hiding,\u201d the person said.<\/p>\n

In the next year and a half, Machado relocated more than a dozen times, taking refuge in people\u2019s homes. While she was in hiding, Maduro ordered security forces to employ \u201can iron fist.\u201d People close to Machado were tortured and questioned about her whereabouts, and state agents ransacked El Bejucal, searching for clues. \u201cThey were gradually closing in on me,\u201d Machado said. Still, she kept communicating with supporters on social media. \u201cYou are not alone\u2014they are,\u201d she said. \u201cThere has already been a change of regime.\u201d She maintained contacts with allies, headlining conferences and holding virtual meetings. The day after Rubio was sworn in, he phoned Machado, whom he called the Venezuelan Iron Lady.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When Machado was awarded the Nobel, in October, 2025, she received the news with both excitement and trepidation. Her youngest sister, Clara, remembered being on the phone with her and their two sisters: \u201cWe were all, like, \u2018This is wonderful!\u2019 And she kept saying, \u2018I\u2019m not so sure.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Machado knew that Trump coveted the award. \u201cFrom the start, she said, \u2018What matters to me is how this will affect the only ally that we have,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Clara recalled.<\/p>\n

To accept the prize, Machado first had to figure out how to get out of Venezuela. The Trump Administration recommended seeking help from Bryan Stern, an American military veteran who runs an outfit called Grey Bull Rescue. On December 5th, five days before the ceremony, Machado\u2019s team got in touch with Stern, who agreed to facilitate an escape.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s regime was \u201cfull shields up,\u201d Stern told me\u2014there were checkpoints on all the major roads. He needed to throw the chavistas<\/em> off the trail. \u201cI know what they consider to be a reliable source,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we fed them.\u201d The plotters circulated rumors that Machado had fled east, through Guyana. Instead, she headed to a marshy beach on the country\u2019s western coast, Stern recalled. After dark, she boarded a skiff manned by two fishermen, who were instructed to travel to a point in the middle of the sea, about fifteen miles from shore.<\/p>\n

Stern predicted that the trip would take less than three hours. But, when his crew got to the meeting place, the fishing boat wasn\u2019t there, and calls to Machado weren\u2019t going through. The waves were rough that night\u2014as high as ten feet. Stern knew that, in such conditions, the boat might not be able to use its radar effectively, and there was virtually no moonlight to navigate by. He deliberated with his crew: What if her skiff had already passed in the dark? What if it had sunk?<\/p>\n

Finally, one of their calls went through to Machado, who said, \u201cWe don\u2019t have the slightest clue where we are.\u201d The fishermen had lost G.P.S. signal hours earlier, and had been drifting. The two teams agreed on a new rendezvous point. A few hours later, Stern saw the skiff swing into view, and shone his flashlight toward it: there was Machado, drenched to the bone. In the rough conditions, she\u2019d suffered a bad fall. Now she felt like a rod had been dug into her spine.<\/p>\n

In Oslo, the atmosphere was tense. The Nobel Committee was used to dealing with absent laureates, but it had never waited while a laureate escaped. \u201cIt pushed the Norwegians into a situation they never could\u2019ve imagined, given how rule-bound they are,\u201d Meda said. \u201cTwo months earlier, they were obsessing over whether she had a peanut allergy or preferred her napkin on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Machado reached Oslo, she\u2019d missed the ceremony\u2014but she was reunited with her family, for the first time in two years. Outside the Grand Hotel, a crowd of Venezuelans assembled to see her. Around two in the morning, Machado stepped onto the balcony to thunderous applause. She looked strikingly pale, and wore a heavy-lidded expression. She had fractured a vertebra on the journey. \u201cValiente, valiente!<\/em>\u201d the crowd chanted. A few blocks away, ten sample actas<\/em> were exhibited in a glass case\u2014they had been smuggled out of Venezuela by volunteers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Washington this April, Representative Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar led an offensive on Machado\u2019s behalf. Salazar represents a district in Miami-Dade County, not far from the one that Rubio represented when he was a state legislator. South Florida has a large population of Venezuelan immigrants\u2014a stridently anti-chavista<\/em> voting bloc that many politicians see as crucial to winning elections.<\/p>\n

In Congress, a State Department official named Michael Kozak had been brought in to testify about the post-Maduro future. Salazar, a fierce interrogator, chided him about leaving Rodr\u00edguez in charge. \u201cWe do not like Delcy,\u201d she said. \u201cDelcy is part of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.\u201d She asked whether the Administration had a date for new Presidential elections, and whether it would protect Machado if she went back.<\/p>\n

Kozak said, \u201cWe expect all the people\u2014including Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, who I also respect very much\u2014to be able to go back and participate.\u201d First, though, there were \u201cmilestones\u201d that needed to be reached. The initial phase of Rubio\u2019s plan, stabilization, was done, he said. But phase two, recovery, was still in progress, and required \u201cgetting oil-industry revenues flowing back in again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela has an estimated seventeen per cent of the world\u2019s untapped oil, but these resources were plundered and mismanaged for decades. After Maduro\u2019s capture, the Trump Administration pressed Rodr\u00edguez to pass a hydrocarbons law that incorporated long- standing demands from oil companies. Still, there have been only modest investments, mainly from companies like Chevron, which has been operating there for years. For many potential investors, an underlying concern is how long the Americans would enforce a receptive environment. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough for the United States to simply say, \u2018Invest,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Luisa Palacios, a Venezuelan expert at Columbia\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy, said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe real recovery\u2014economic or national\u2014is possible without a political transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

This spring, Machado spoke at Cera<\/em>Week, an energy conference in Houston. From a ballroom stage, she addressed the crowd in the tones of a startup founder pitching investors. \u201cI am here to speak about our future\u2014a future which is extraordinary<\/em>,\u201d she declared. \u201cAnd I want all of you to be part of it.\u201d The country\u2019s oil production could quintuple, she said\u2014if the right leader was in charge. She vowed to usher in \u201cclear rules, stable conditions, and a legitimate, democratic government you can really rely on.\u201d There\u2019d be a new, independent hydrocarbon agency, and royalties would be kept low. The \u201cVenezuelan state will get out of the way,\u201d she promised.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The consensus at Cera<\/em>Week was that Machado had made an enticing case, Francisco Monaldi, the director of Rice University\u2019s Latin America Energy Program, told me. But executives were skeptical that she would have a chance to prove herself anytime soon. The Trump Administration has control of Venezuela\u2019s oil revenues, and has authorized the disbursement of more than six billion dollars to Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government, according to a senior U.S. official.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Rodr\u00edguez has been solidifying her influence in Washington\u2014hiring a lobbyist and cultivating people who might benefit from stalling a transition. \u201cNo one in the Republican Party wants to talk about elections,\u201d a Republican aide told me. \u201cMany people are thirsty for Venezuela\u2019s resources. Those interests override everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s advocates include Richard Grenell, who, as Trump\u2019s representative, held negotiations with the regime before Maduro\u2019s ouster, and Harry Sargeant, a prominent Republican donor who recently began exporting Venezuelan crude. Perhaps most significant is Mauricio Claver Carone, who previously served as Trump\u2019s special envoy to Latin America and remains hugely influential. Carone, who has been described as the \u201cJared Kushner of Latin America,\u201d manages a private-equity fund, and is said to be promoting his own interests in Venezuela. (Carone denies having any investments in the country.) The longtime operative said, \u201cThere\u2019s an economic clique whose priority is to extract as much money as possible before Trump leaves office, and that means keeping Delcy in power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the spring, Machado made appearances at which she was treated almost like a head of state. She met with Emmanuel Macron at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e and with Giorgia Meloni at the Chigi Palace. In Madrid, she held a rally that drew more than ten thousand supporters to a vast square at the heart of the city. Onstage, she proclaimed, \u201cWe Venezuelans are sending a clear message to the world: Venezuela will<\/em> be free, because that is what we Venezuelans have chosen!\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, she summoned the leaders of the main opposition parties to a meeting in Panama City, where they issued a manifesto declaring her the \u201csteward of the country\u2019s democratic process.\u201d Yet people in Venezuela saw few indications of an incipient transition. L\u00f3pez Maya, the historian, noted that after the dictator Juan Vicente G\u00f3mez died, in the thirties, prison gates were opened. \u201cPolitical prisoners ran out to the sea and threw their shackles in the water,\u201d she said. Since Maduro was deposed, only one detention center has ceased operations. Hundreds of political prisoners remain in custody. And, though Rodr\u00edguez passed a law offering amnesty to dissidents, the language seems designed to exclude Machado and her allies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Venezuelans often compare the regime to a hydra, with only one of its heads chopped off. The chavistas<\/em> still control the country\u2019s institutions, including the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council. Diosdado Cabello, who spent years overseeing Maduro\u2019s apparatus of repression, remains in the cabinet. Despite having a twenty-five-million-dollar U.S. bounty on his head, Cabello has participated in meetings with Trump officials, whom he has called \u201cthe real pirates of the Caribbean.\u201d His language toward the opposition has been no less scathing. After the 2024 election, he declared, \u201cLos vamos a joder<\/em>\u201d\u2014\u201cWe\u2019re going to fuck them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent months, the regime has worked to displace Machado from the public consciousness. After a television network aired a clip of her promising to return to Venezuela, Cabello threatened retribution. \u201cMachado is running out of options,\u201d he said on his weekly TV show, \u201cBeat Them with a Club,\u201d adding, \u201cHer room to maneuver is shrinking at breakneck speed.\u201d In Caracas, the government has hung posters depicting Rodr\u00edguez on a blue backdrop, a color associated with the opposition, alongside the words \u201cDelcy, move ahead, you have my trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the earthquakes exposed the regime\u2019s precarity. It took the government roughly seventy-two hours to dispatch rescuers to La Guaira, where the damage was most severe. And, when the military was eventually deployed, the most visible intervention was thousands of armed men controlling traffic and standing idly by the ruins. In a visit to a stricken area, Rodr\u00edguez was booed and shouted down. She had dismissed the criticism of her government as the product of a \u201cmedia laboratory.\u201d But a recent poll showed that more than ninety per cent of Venezuelans disapproved of her leadership. Even Trump, who was the most popular politician in Venezuela after Maduro\u2019s arrest, has seen his ratings slide.<\/p>\n

Initial estimates show that the earthquakes caused more than six billion dollars in damage. For Benigno Alarc\u00f3n, a prominent political analyst in Caracas, the flow of recovery funds presented opportunities for corruption. \u201cThis is where the rush for spoils begins,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there lies the fatal mistake of moving forward without institutions.\u201d Alarc\u00f3n went on, \u201cA tragedy of this magnitude could have given Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government an opportunity to earn some legitimacy through its actions, despite lacking legitimacy at the start.\u201d Instead, the regime had floundered. \u201cWhite House officials must be asking themselves whether it is even possible to rebuild the country with these people still in power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Administration remained committed to Rodr\u00edguez, at least in public. The U.S. charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires in Caracas, John Barrett, defended her handling of the disaster, noting that her government had been \u201cfully compliant\u201d with the United States. Even as an estimated fifty-thousand Venezuelans are missing, Barrett chose to emphasize that the oil industry remained intact, and that \u201cproduction continues.\u201d When protesters gathered outside the U.S. Embassy, Barrett asked to have them cleared away. Story, the American diplomat, said, \u201cUnless democracy is restored soon, we\u2019re just working towards a more profitable authoritarian regime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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All along, Machado has maintained that Trump\u2019s vision for Venezuela is aligned with hers\u2014a claim that seems harder and harder to sustain. In promoting an intervention, she yielded some real part of her agency to the United States. For nearly half a year now, the Administration has been stalling her return; at one point, Trump officials offered to have her named Secretary-General of the United Nations. Meanwhile, the longtime operative said, \u201cTrump uses the Mar\u00eda Corina issue to keep Delcy on her toes\u2014\u2018Don\u2019t get too comfortable, because at any moment I can send Mar\u00eda Corina after you.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Recently, the Administration announced that Rodr\u00edguez had agreed to talks with a group of opposition figures. But, instead of including Machado, the U.S. promoted another exiled leader, Dinorah Figuera, who is seen as more conciliatory.<\/p>\n

As Machado prepared to return to Venezuela after the earthquake, Trump evidently set aside his reservations. He called Rodr\u00edguez and told her not to allow Machado to be harmed. But then her flight was diverted, apparently on orders from someone in the Administration. Though Machado\u2019s U.S. counterparts assured her that it was all a misunderstanding, the longtime operative described it as the result of infighting. \u201cThere are factions regarding Venezuela,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the faction that\u2019s winning today says, Don\u2019t rock the boat between now and November.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day after her flight was grounded, Machado flew to Panama City, planning to catch a plane from there to Venezuela. Before she could board, an official from the airline called and told her that Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government had threatened to revoke its license if she were allowed on the plane. Machado issued a frustrated message to followers. \u201cI will be in Venezuela so we can mourn our losses together, pray together, hold one another, and organize ourselves,\u201d she insisted. \u201cI will do whatever<\/em> it takes for us to be together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, I reached Machado at a hotel in Panama. The rescue efforts in Venezuela were flagging. Morgues were at capacity, so corpses had been laid in a parking lot, then moved to a seaport, where the stench of death hung heavy. Thousands of families continued to search for loved ones, with little help. \u201cThis earthquake shook the foundations of everything,\u201d Machado said. \u201cIt caused all the masks to fall away.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a note of exhaustion in Machado\u2019s voice. She has characterized her return as \u201ca stabilizing force.\u201d But it is also possible that conflicts over who is the rightful leader of Venezuela will inspire violence\u2014particularly from the supporters of the regime, who have the majority of the country\u2019s guns. Even Machado has argued that if \u201cthere is growing anxiety that the regime might prevail unchecked, the risk increases that the situation could become chaotic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As if to convince herself, Machado repeated one of her most fundamental ideas. \u201cThe people do<\/em> matter,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I was, in fact, elected. I have what\u2019s most valuable\u2014people\u2019s trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent polls show that Machado is the only politician whom a majority of Venezuelans support. In private, Rubio has promised that elections would take place\u2014but did not commit to a date. In Machado\u2019s absence, the Venezuelan opposition has been hobbled, as the accommodationists try, with little success, to effect change from the inside. Machado\u2019s party, Vente Venezuela, is essentially just a vehicle for her. It isn\u2019t registered officially; the National Electoral Council never accepted the applications. \u201cIf Machado fades politically, there\u2019s very little chance of democratization,\u201d L\u00f3pez Maya said.<\/p>\n

In Panama, Machado was still insisting on her version of political reality. She said that she remained in contact with Trump\u2019s people, but didn\u2019t address the underlying question of why the Administration hadn\u2019t interceded on her behalf. I asked if she had ever doubted the Americans\u2019 commitment to democracy in Venezuela. \u201cThe Secretary of State has repeatedly assured me of it, and I take him at his word,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When I asked whether her current situation could have been prevented, she shot back, \u201cWhat situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe limbo of being in Panama, unable to enter Venezuela,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in limbo,\u201d she countered. \u201cI\u2019m in the middle of a process, like so many times before, working harder than ever, co\u00f6rdinating with our people, leveraging support from all over the world.\u201d The only uncertainty she would allow was around a question of efficiency. \u201cWhen we look back,\u201d she said, \u201cwe may find that there was a faster way to carry this through.\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more To-Do List for While My Baby Naps<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The opposition leader hoped to take over Venezuela after the abduction of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2014but first she needed to secure support from the Trump Administration. 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