The whereabouts of María Corina Machado has been, since August 2024, one of the great enigmas of Venezuelan politics. The majority has always been hidden inside the country, immersed in its strategy aimed at weakening Chavista hegemony. Her enormous popular influence made the issue taboo, and the authorities fueled the confusion: the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, managed to assure several times that she was in Venezuela. It was in this context that the first big surprise appeared. While many people were hypervigilant, Machado announced that he would travel to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person, accompanied by his allies and supporters.
Machado went into hiding after last summer’s elections. Without leaving Venezuela, he continued to act in the shadows to impose a democratic transition. He claimed the electoral triumph of Edmundo González Urrutia, calling on citizens to organize and protest and calling on the armed forces to respect the popular will in the face of the orders of Chavismo.
The furious popular protests that took place across Venezuela after the announcement of the results of the July 28, 2024 elections surprised Chavismo as well as the opposition. Amid the chaos, more statues of Hugo Chávez were torn down in different parts of the country. On July 30, when tensions were at their peak, Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia appeared before his supporters in Caracas. Allí revealed that his equipment had scanned 80% of the reports that the National Electoral Council had refused to show and published them on a website accessible to all citizens. According to these records, González Urrutia had won by a large margin.
The publication of the minutes and the acts of desecration of Chavista symbols triggered a fierce reaction against the regime that had not been seen in the last 60 years. Finance General Tarek William Saab reported that 1,062 people have been arrested on the ground in recent days, with particularly harsh prison treatment. Maduro announced the reconditioning of several sentences to receive “terrorists” and denounced a conspiracy, organized from abroad, to ignore the electoral results and foment chaos. And placed Machado at the center of his messages.
Chavismo called its supporters into the streets and advocated popular indignation through the use of public force and the work of the political police. In August, Edmundo González Urrutia requested political asylum in Spain, and from September onwards, opposition protests petered out. With each call in the street, the police randomly brought new demonstrators to the prison. Machado insisted on maintaining the movement and the diaspora organized massive concentrations abroad between October and December.
The situation became more critical in 2025, when Nicolas Maduro took a new oath after a repressive prison. González Urrutia, who had promised to return to the country to assume the presidency, was unable to do so. Machado justified his absence by saying that his return would take place “when political conditions determine it”. From then on, the opposition leader began to report on her management with the United States, aiming to convince the government of Donald Trump to take definitive measures to resolve the Venezuelan crisis.
In February 2025, Machado presented a new strategic ally: Donald Trump Junior, 47 years old, tycoon and son of the American president. At a time when Casa Blanca was adopting hostile measures towards the Venezuelan diaspora, Machado insisted in his message of confidence: “We have in Washington the best ally of our freedom”.
Trump said the United States must “take care of Venezuela” and predicted it would “very soon” begin ground operations against drug cartels, the central argument with which Washington attacks Chavismo. Alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he has become one of the key figures supporting Machado’s rhetoric and encouraging Trump to take a more aggressive stance toward Maduro.
By mid-2025, while Machado insisted that the regime was weakened and on the verge of fracturing, the reality showed firm Chavismo in political and military control, despite the economic crisis and its lack of popular support. Until now, Trump had shown little interest in changing the Venezuelan table.
However, Machado’s efforts yielded results. During the second week of August, the US president began to publicly characterize the Maduro regime as a structure linked to the Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles. The price tag quickly rose: U.S. forces launched operations against ships that Washington said were trafficking drugs from Venezuelan shores. Maduro’s government responded by dissolving its entire political-military structure, including the high command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB).
From his hiding place, Machado issued two new proclamations that invite Venezuelans to imagine a democratic transition. In each message, the opposition leader clearly indicates that she takes political responsibility for the offensive launched from Washington against Maduro’s government. His narrative, now reinforced by the international recognition that the Nobel Peace Prize entails, seeks to establish the idea that Venezuela faces a historic opportunity to break with Chavismo.
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