Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Friday she is “profoundly, profoundly confident” that Venezuela will have an “orderly transition” to democracy, even as she declined to offer a timetable for when elections might be held.
Speaking to reporters at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Machado said she was confident about her country’s eventual transition after the U.S. military ousted former President Nicolás Maduro, according to the Associated Press. She acknowledged that holding free elections after decades of autocratic rule would be challenging.
When pressed about her plans for returning to Venezuela, Machado said she would return “as soon as possible,” while also providing few concrete details about what those steps would involve. Her answers, AP reported, reflected the political space created by President Donald Trump’s endorsement of acting President Delcy Rodríguez to lead Venezuela for now.
AP reported that Machado met with Trump while CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Venezuela meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, reinforcing what AP described as Washington’s preference for Rodríguez at the moment. The juxtaposition came as Machado traveled to Washington seeking to rekindle the support for democracy that Trump showed during his first administration.
At the White House a day earlier, AP said Machado presented Trump with her Nobel medal, praising him for what she described as his commitment to Venezuela’s freedom. The Nobel Institute, AP reported, has said the prize cannot be shared or transferred.
At the Heritage Foundation on Friday, Machado dismissed the suggestion that Trump’s decision to work with Rodríguez snubbed her opposition movement. She said, “This has nothing to do with a tension or decision between Delcy Rodríguez and myself,” while avoiding elaboration that would have directly addressed that dispute. AP reported she instead made broader references to her movement’s popular mandate and pointed to the government’s human-rights record.
Machado also described Maduro’s government in sweeping terms, saying, “The only thing they have is terror.” She waved away questions about whether her movement could assert authority over security forces that remain loyal to Maduro, and she argued that internal divisions would not define any transition.
“There are not religious tensions within the Venezuelan society or racial or regional or political or social tensions,” Machado said, according to AP. But she also acknowledged the difficulty of dismantling the incumbent’s long-standing power structure, saying she saw “the difficulty of destroying a 27-year structure allied with the Russians and the Iranians.”
“We are facing challenging times ahead,” Machado said, while responding to the idea that she might be expected to tell Trump what he should do next. AP reported that she provided almost no details about the meeting or about her view of specific U.S. actions, saying, “I think I don’t need to urge the president on specific things.”
AP said Trump had previously said it would be difficult for Machado to lead, saying she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.” Trump also told reporters that Machado left the medal for him to keep and said, “I think she’s a very fine woman,” adding, “And we’ll be talking again.”
Machado has been central to Venezuela’s opposition since campaigning across the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election, AP reported, rallying millions of voters to end what she and supporters described as 25 years of single party rule. After Machado was barred from the race, AP reported that a former diplomat, Edmundo Gonzalez, replaced her on the ballot, and election officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner despite “ample credible evidence to the contrary.”
After that vote, AP reported, Machado went into hiding but vowed to continue fighting until democracy was restored. She later reemerged in December to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, AP said, the first time in more than a decade that she had left Venezuela.
The AP report also said the U.S. is considering reopening the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, which Trump closed during his first administration.