Maria Corina Machado back in Venezuela after 10 months abroad: 'I am here. With you'

Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado is back in Venezuela after about 10 months abroad, her team confirmed to CBS News on Sunday 25 October. She has not said where she is or how she got in. On X she wrote, in Spanish: "I am here. With you."

Why she was gone

Machado left Venezuela secretly last December with a private US team to collect her Nobel prize in Norway, her first public appearance in 11 months. The government of Nicolas Maduro had barred her from leaving. A month later, the US military removed Maduro from power.

Venezuela is now run by acting president Delcy Rodriguez, a long-time Maduro ally whose succession the Trump administration backed. The authorities treat Machado as a fugitive and accuse her of calling for military intervention. Her attempts to return failed several times, including after the double earthquakes of 24 June, and in September she was turned away three times in 24 hours by air and sea, her senior adviser said.

What she wants

Rodriguez has stayed in the acting role longer than she was authorised to, and no presidential election has been scheduled. Machado's movement wants a date; US officials have said economic stabilisation comes first. Supporters rallied in Caracas on 22 October to demand an election.

Her adviser called the return "a major step toward a democratic transition and free, fair, and verifiable presidential elections in the near future", and thanked President Trump and the US government. Edmundo Gonzalez, the movement's former presidential candidate who lives in Spain, confirmed she was back and said he would join her "very soon".

CBS did not report whether she faces arrest.

Why it matters here

Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, and any change in who runs it, and how much it pumps, feeds into the crude prices that set what Pakistan pays for fuel. With the US and Iran also trading threats this week, oil is moving on politics more than supply. Our petrol price page tracks the PSO ex-depot price in Karachi, and the dollar to rupee page the exchange rate that decides what imported oil costs in rupees.