South Americaupdated 1h ago2 min read
Archive photo · 11 December 2025Maria Corina Machado Thanks Trump, Urges Venezuela Presidential Elections in 2027
“US capture of former President Nicolas Maduro”
“by abducting President Nicolas Maduro in January.”
Photo: Kevin Payravi / WikiPortraits, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped for layout
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Machado thanked Trump administration for Maduro's capture, calling it the floodgate to freedom. She urged elections be held in 2027 and said the transition to democracy was irreversible.
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Machado backs 2027 vote
Maria Corina Machado thanked US President Donald Trump’s administration for opening the “floodgate to freedom” after the US capture of former President Nicolás Maduro in January, and she urged that Venezuela hold presidential elections in 2027. Machado made the remarks in Caracas during a news conference after returning from more than 10 months in exile, and she said, “Thanks to their vision, their courage, and their action on January 3, the floodgate to freedom has been opened,” naming Trump, his administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, told state television that “The show could have been avoided – the airports are right here,” while also assuring the nation that elections would be held “with the world as witness” without specifying a date. Machado said Rubio “has set out a sequence of events aimed at moving toward a democratic transition that makes clear the holding of presidential elections in 2027,” and she added that “The date of the election is the date of liberation.”
Rodríguez promises elections
Delcy Rodríguez said Venezuela would hold elections, and she told the BBC that her government should oversee a “transition of this magnitude” while not setting a date for voting. Machado dismissed Rodríguez’s approach as illogical in her first public remarks since returning, and she said the transition would be “irreversible, organised, pacific” while standing before a slogan that read “Let Us Be Free.”
Machado also said she had not received a message or invitation to meet from Rodríguez, and she told reporters she would not personally participate in election negotiations between opposition representatives and the government. Machado said she had heard one word repeated by the thousands of supporters who thronged her route into the capital, and she said, “I come to carry out a task and complete a mandate,” as she described her return to Venezuela.
Oil deal and next steps
Machado criticized an oil deal Washington and Caracas agreed to earlier this year, under which Venezuela is expected to supply 20% of its oil reserves to the United States. Machado said, “This agreement does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants,” and she made the same point while thanking Trump for the January 3 capture of Maduro.
Rodríguez, meanwhile, said she had “instructed the security agencies that no one be detained without judicial order, except in cases of flagrant commission of crimes,” and she spoke of “the doors being open” for returning exiles. Machado said she would seek to secure the release of the thousands of political prisoners and to dismantle the country’s repressive system, while she denied having had any contact with interim President Delcy Rodriguez.