PANAMA CITY — Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado has announced that she plans to run for president again and intends to return to her home country before the end of 2026.
Machado’s remarks Saturday, made while meeting in Panama with several fellow Venezuelan opposition leaders, come more than four months after the White House decision to sideline her and instead work with a Venezuelan ruling party loyalist following the U.S. military’s invasion and arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado has remained in exile since December, when she emerged from 11 months in hiding somewhere in Venezuela and traveled to Norway, where she attended the Nobel Prize ceremony.
She told reporters in Panama City that she and the other gathered opposition leaders remain committed to a democratic transition “through free and fair presidential elections, where all Venezuelans inside and outside the country vote.”
Still, it is unclear when Venezuela will hold a presidential election.
President Trump and senior administration officials have praised Maduro’s successor, acting President Delcy Rodríguez — formerly Maduro’s vice president — who has thrown open Venezuela’s oil industry to U.S. investment at a time of surging oil prices driven by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
Unlike previous U.S. administrations, the government under Trump has not emphasized democracy as a goal while maneuvering for “regime change.”
The Trump administration has dampened talk of elections in Venezuela, which are required by the nation’s constitution within 30 days of the president becoming “permanently unavailable.”
An election with democratic conditions would take between seven and nine months of planning, Machado said. Necessary changes include the appointment of neutral electoral authorities, voting registration updates and the ability of opposition candidates to run for office without government interference.
Machado rose to become Maduro’s strongest opponent in recent years, and his authoritarian government barred her from running for office in the 2024 presidential election, leading her to choose retired ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia to represent her party on the ballot.
Officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner mere hours after the polls closed, but Machado’s well-organized campaign collected evidence — endorsed by international observers — showing González had defeated Maduro by a margin of more than 2 to 1.
On Saturday, Machado told reporters she would run against any other presidential hopeful in “an impeccable election.”
“I will be a candidate, but there may be others, of course,” she said. “I would love to compete with everyone, with anyone who wants to be a candidate.”
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