Venezuela still has a long ways to go before fully rejoining the world of fully modern nations. There are still remnants of the Maduro regime hanging on, including the "interim" president Delcy Rodríguez, a Maduro creature herself.
One of the key steps to redeeming Venezuela will be new elections, which many in and out of Venezuela are hoping will happen as early as this year. Now, opposition candidate and exile María Corina Machado is now talking about returning to Venezuela and running for president. That might be one of the better things that could happen to the South American nation since Maduro was nabbed.
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado announced Saturday that she plans to run for president again and intends to return to her home country before the end of 2026.
Machado’s remarks, made while meeting in Panama with several fellow Venezuelan opposition leaders, come more than four months after the stunning White House decision to sideline her and instead work with a Venezuelan ruling party loyalist following the U.S. military’s capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado has been in exile since December, when she emerged from 11 months in hiding somewhere in Venezuela and traveled to Norway where she was honored with the Nobel Prize.
Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts with the opposition to Venezuela's dictatorial Maduro regime; she famously offered to give the award to President Trump, in view of his support for her work.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has given her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House, saying it was a recognition of his commitment to her country's freedom.
This, of course, had a lot of the American left running around like their hair was on fire.
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On the topic of elections, though, President Trump appears to be hedging his bets.
U.S. President Donald Trump and senior administration officials have praised Maduro's successor, acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who has thrown open Venezuela's oil industry to U.S. investment at a time of surging oil prices tied to the war in Iran.
The Trump administration has also dampened talk of elections, which are required by Venezuela's constitution within 30 days of the president becoming "permanently unavailable."
It's been more than 30 days, and Venezuela appears to be using Delcy Rodríguez as the reason for not holding elections within that 30-day window. At present, the next presidential elections have not been scheduled, although Machado's opposition group has been calling for elections in 2026. Her return to Venezuela may strengthen those calls.
The dates for new elections remain unknown, and they are not even being considered in the short term. Even so, Machado has suggested a possible horizon. In recent weeks, she has said that it would be feasible to organize elections in less than a year if real guarantees and minimal institutional conditions are put in place.
Nothing here is settled until Venezuela has elections; free, fair, internationally monitored elections. That's the key to any modern nation with a representative government, and so far, Venezuela hasn't yet taken that step.
Maybe María Corina Machado's return will kick-start this process. We'll see.
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