Venezuelans Rally for Machado's Return and Elections

Hundreds of Venezuelan opposition supporters rallied in Caracas and several state capitals on Sunday, demanding the return of exiled leader Maria Corina Machado and a clear timetable for presidential elections.²³

Rally in Caracas and beyond

Demonstrators gathered in Caracas as well as in the state capitals of Valencia, Maracaibo and Merida, with activists from Machado's Vente Venezuela party leading the protests. Vente Venezuela activist Flavio Valentini, speaking in Caracas, said: "This is not a matter of parties or politics. This is a movement for the people and by the people," he said.³²

Anthony Romero, a Vente Venezuela party leader in the capital, said the movement hoped the political transition would culminate in presidential elections. He said: "We hope this transition process leads us to presidential elections and consolidates a free, democratic country that will be the main ally of the United States."²

Claudia Macero, who ran press operations for Machado and had been in exile, returned to Caracas airport on Sunday to a cheering crowd. She said: "It is time to come home. It is time to recover the country," before adding, "Maria Corina is trying every day to come home. Evidently there is a very difficult process, but this will come to an end," she said.²

Machado's blocked return

Deutsche Welle and CNN reported that Machado tried and failed seven times this year to reenter Venezuela, whereas her party told Al Jazeera the number of failed attempts was three. Reports on 27 September described a canceled boat trip and a plane denied landing permits in Curacao as among the recent efforts.¹⁶²⁴

Multiple outlets report that opposition activists blame the Venezuelan government for preventing Machado from coming back, a charge the authorities reject. Several sources describe Machado as having lived in exile for the past nine months, though this account was disputed by abcnews.com.³²⁴¹

Al Jazeera and abcnews.com reported that Maduro-controlled courts prevented Machado from being a candidate in Venezuela's most recent presidential election. The candidate who ran in her place is generally thought to have captured nearly two-thirds of the vote, yet Maduro declared himself the winner and, as abcnews.com reported, met dissent with a violent crackdown. For her work pushing to restore democracy in Venezuela, Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize.²¹⁴

Government pledges a vote

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, current Venezuelan government leader Delcy Rodriguez stated that elections would take place as the country moves toward full democracy, though she did not specify when. She said: "Venezuela has begun a process of democratic transformation," and "There will be elections in Venezuela," before adding, "A nation is not reborn merely by rebuilding buildings. It is reborn when it rebuilds trust in its institutions." Rodriguez further expressed gratitude to Trump for restoring cooperation, and Venezuela has since opened its oil sector to foreign investors.⁵²

Al Jazeera reported that a second round of US-backed negotiations led Venezuela to free upwards of three dozen political prisoners. Separately, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Machado is fully entitled to reenter her homeland whenever she chooses, though he claimed no knowledge of her latest attempts to do so. Trump administration officials denied holding her back, though officials have on some occasions advised her not to return over safety concerns; the Secretary of State argued Venezuela must first stabilize its economy and rebuild institutions before new elections, while saying the U.S. would like thousands of Venezuelans to come back and, as Rubio put it, "open the businesses that they lost."²⁴

International reactions

U.S. special forces captured Nicolas Maduro from his Caracas home in January, roughly nine months before Rodriguez's UN address, according to Al Jazeera and United Press International. Trump defended the operation, and Rodriguez, according to Deutsche Welle, has worked closely with Washington since.²⁵¹

Brazilian President Lula criticized the Washington-Caracas relationship, saying "Venezuela's sovereignty is over" and that "Venezuelans deserved to determine their own future without outside interference." Paraguayan President Santiago Peña said his visit to Caracas did not amount to endorsing the government, saying: "I did not go to Venezuela to validate a regime." A United Nations fact-finding mission, cited about a week before Rodriguez's speech, found that repression had not eased; its representative Alex Neve said: "The entirety of Venezuela's repressive apparatus remains entirely intact."⁶⁵