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Nobel Peace Prize winner returns to Venezuela from exile, pressing for elections and criticising a controversial US oil deal with Caracas.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has thanked US President Donald Trump’s administration for opening the “floodgate to freedom” by abducting President Nicolas Maduro in January.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Thursday also called for elections to be held in Venezuela next year, in her first public remarks since returning from more than 10 months in exile.

“Thanks to their vision, their courage, and their action on January 3, the floodgate to freedom has been opened,” Machado told a news conference in Caracas, naming Trump, his administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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”, she said.

Machado has praised Trump before, presenting the president with her Nobel medal – a prize he feverishly coveted for himself in 2025.

A longtime activist, Machado fled Venezuela for Oslo in December to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. On Thursday, she said she had come home to “mobilise society”. US special forces veterans with an organisation called Grey Bull Rescue helped Machado escape by boat after she spent a year in hiding from Maduro’s regime.

Since Maduro’s abduction in January, the country has been ruled by his former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

Machado was greeted by cheering supporters as she travelled in her motorcade after she returned to Venezuela on Sunday. Rodriguez voiced distaste for the fanfare.

“The show could have been avoided – the airports are right here,” she said on state television.

When asked about a possible meeting with Rodriguez, the opposition leader said she had not received any message from her or from Washington.

Shortly before Machado’s statements on Thursday, Rodriguez assured the nation that elections would be held in Venezuela “with the world as witness” but did not specify a date.

Her return comes just weeks after a controversial US oil deal that will see Venezuela hand over 20 percent of its vast oil reserves.

“This agreement does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants,” Machado said, criticising the deal.

As the weeks pass, the transition framework being tested by the U.S. State Department for Venezuela is becoming increasingly clear. On Monday the 26th, a senior State Department official told the press: “That is the goal here:  a new TSJ before the end of this year; a new CNE shortly thereafter; declare the vacant – permanent vacancy in the presidency that triggers the six-month cycle for the presidential election.  And that’s – and then that election will happen, run by the nonpolitical CNE and governed by a TSJ that you’re not going to go to and basically annul the results of the elections because it’s been compromised or politicized the way the regime used it in the past.”

Secretary of State Rubio has been consistent on this point: institutional conditions in Venezuela must be restored before elections can be held. This is also what Venezuelans have demanded for years: an independent Supreme Court, TSJ, and an electoral board, CNE that ensure the will expressed through elections is respected. This is the exact opposite of what occurred in 2024, when the regime used the CNE and the TSJ to disregard Edmundo González’s electoral victory.

Venezuela must undergo a process of institutional reorganization, which will be a central component of the political transition. The first issue to be addressed is the “absolute absence” in the Presidency of the Republic following January 3rd. While the individual who served as Executive Vice President has filled that void, under the Venezuelan Constitution, it is indisputable that we are facing a case of “absolute absence,” which must be resolved according to the rules outlined in the Constitution itself.

In this regard, the Constitutional Chamber could play a significant role by interpreting—in accordance with the Constitution—any questions that may arise concerning this “absolute absence” and how it should be resolved. Furthermore, regarding the organization of elections, the Electoral Chamber could play a decisive role by resolving issues related to restoring the conditions for electoral integrity—conditions that are essential in Venezuela.

Given the lack of political will on the part of the interim authorities to repeal laws that run counter to human rights, the Constitutional Chamber could declare such laws null and void.

This is why the roadmap adopted by the negotiating team is based on a highly sound logic: Venezuela’s institutional vulnerability is so severe that the country cannot sustain an electoral process—such as one for the presidency—without first stabilizing, at the very least, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Electoral Council.

Naturally, this is not incompatible with the demand for elections, as María Corina Machado calls for.

However, it seems both logical and prudent first to restore the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Electoral Council to take that step securely.

The Nobel laureate’s homecoming follows national protests demanding free elections.

Venezuela’s opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has successfully returned to the country after more than 10 months in exile.

Machado announced her arrival on social media on Sunday, writing, “I am here. With you.”

The current opposition leader, Edmundo Gonzalez, confirmed the news, writing on X that “our leader, my dear Maria Corina, is on Venezuelan soil”.

The Comando Con Venezuela political organisation shared footage of Machado arriving at a church in Lara, where she was greeted by supporters.

Machado first disappeared from public life after being briefly arrested in January 2025. She re-emerged last December in Norway, where she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to challenge Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro was abducted from Caracas by the United States military in January 2026.

Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has stood in as acting president since then, with the endorsement of US President Donald Trump, and has cooperated with his administration regarding reforms in the country, as well as a deal to grant the US control of over 65 billion barrels’ worth of Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Calls for elections to be held

Rodriguez’s presidency has extended far beyond the 90-day period she was authorised to serve following Maduro’s removal. But she has yet to call an election despite public demand and despite her promise to do so at the United Nations General Assembly in September. The US maintains that the country is not ready yet.

Earlier this week, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to call for elections in the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years.

Although the opposition is widely believed to have won Venezuela’s disputed 2024 elections, Trump has cast doubt on Machado’s abilities to lead, claiming in January that she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country”.

Machado presented Trump with her Nobel medal when visiting him in the White House weeks later, in what she said was “a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom”. The US leader has repeatedly voiced his desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize himself.

Machado has made previous unsuccessful attempts to enter Venezuela. In September, her team said she had made seven attempts in the space of a few weeks.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X that “the conditions allowing for the safe return of Ms. Machado to Venezuela is the direct result of the U.S. supported reconciliation talks which has already seen hundreds of political prisoners freed and hundreds of political opposition figures return from exile.”

Asked to comment about Machado’s return, Trump told reporters on Sunday, “I don’t know anything about it, but I think she’s a very nice woman.”

“She gave me her Nobel Prize, so how can I say anything else? And I hope she’s safe.”

In February 2014, Venezuela witnessed one of the most prolonged and violent periods in the past 17 years against the nationally elected government.

What began as violence at some of the country’s more elite universities quickly descended into the violent street barricades, known as the guarimbas. Forty-three people, mostly civilians and security personnel, were killed. Entire communities were walled in, their residents blocked from accessing food, transport, gas and even necessary medical services. Buildings were set alight with people inside, hundreds were injured.

The proponents, the so-called guarimberos, called themselves protesters: a claim echoed many times in the international press. But for the government and a vast number of ordinary citizens, they were terrorists.

The anniversary of these events comes at a critical moment in Venezuelan politics: over the past two weeks, the newly elected right-wing legislators in the country’s national assembly have begun pushing for an Amnesty Law. If passed, this legislation would grant a pardon to the most violent perpetrators of the barricades. 

With the perpetrators of these acts potentially about to be set free, many in Venezuela are asking: could more violence be on the cards? To answer this question we have to understand what the violent barricades were, who took part in them and why they eventually petered out. As usual, there is a whole other story that the mainstream media ignored.

Who Were the Violent Barricaders?

Although the international media portrayed the barricades as a spontaneous youth uprising, testimonies that have emerged in the wake of the barricades tell a very different story.

“There were organized groups from within the universities, which were divided into subgroups. People in charge of the distribution of information, photos, and publishing all that, people in charge of planning the routes, people in charge of security… there was organization amidst the chaos,” Gabriel* — an undercover participant at the protests who wished to remain anonymous — told me.

It’s also clear that the “youthful” barricaders didn’t operate alone — although they might have been the official face of the unrest.

In the barricaders’ stronghold of Altamira and Chacao in Caracas, collaborators from private homes to small businesses facilitated the protesters with a network of internet connections and passwords to aid their communications, as well as with food and drink, places to hold meetings or to hide from police. 

But it was perhaps at night when the most sinister and violent elements of the barricades emerged.

“There was a core violent group, but they weren’t students … They really did want to cause big shit, cause confrontations with police, they even intimidated the other guys (barricaders), they said ‘you’re a bunch of pussies, what are we gonna do with this shit?’,” Gabriel said.

“They knew how to act in these circumstances … (the police) launched gas bombs at them, and they all got out the way, grabbed the bombs and threw them back …There were people who really knew about this stuff,” related Gabriel.

The right-wing MUD coalition was a leader of the violence. In the words of one tight-lipped barricader, who also wished to remain anonymous, in response to why the protests had erupted in the first place, he simply replied, “I think it was more because of the calls from the political parties of the opposition.”

Gabriel also stated that the relationship between the MUD and the barricaders was clear.

“None of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts, they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts … They might have been student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the political opposition parties and they are accountable to them … There was a feeling among the universities that they wanted to take to the streets. There wasn’t exactly a violent idea there … but it was clear that some people wanted something transcendental to happen, the death of someone, a policeman getting burned…”

And despite the official narrative that the right wing wasn’t violent, “Men on motorbikes circled the camps — no one could get near, not even the police. But by night these … ultra violent radical groups turned up, and they (those students at the camps) let them in.”

But perhaps the most revealing comment in terms of how far the organized right-wing were involved in the 2014 barricades came when I asked what the majority of the barricaders were doing now. 

“Well if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now,” Gabriel said.

The mayor of Hatillo, David Smolansky, and legislator Gabriela Arellano “were both up to their necks in it,” according to Gabriel. “Those who aren’t in the opposition rank and file, are in prison,” he concluded. 

Mystery Dollars 

Another question mark which also still hangs over the violent barricades is where the money came from to pay for tents, food and drink, transport, walky-talkies, weapons and a whole cohort of other not so cheap items in Venezuela.

While I was informed that many of the barricaders were paid approximately 600 bolivars a day to take part – especially to dissuade people from going on holiday during carnival – Gabriel also confirmed that he was approached and asked if he wanted to “make a bit of money.”

But the currency circulating among the violent barricaders gives even more pause for thought.

“I would actually go as far as to say that there were more dollars inside the camps than bolivars,” stated Gabriel, who added that the guarimbas coincided with a hike in the black market price of the dollar against the bolivar on website, Dolartoday.

What is clear from all this is that the guarimbas were not “student protests” or the youth in rebellion, as the mainstream media portrayed. While there were some middle class students among the ranks who didn’t intend to harm anyone, it’s also true that there were many others who came from Venezuela’s well seasoned and highly organized right-wing student movement and who were happy to flirt with violence, and even to let other other people do the dirty work on their behalf. Likewise, there were evidently highly violent groups within the protests who received funding and military training.

The Fish that Didn’t Want Water: ‘He Who Tires, Loses’

“They lost strength, people came out less and less, maybe we would have achieved something if people had stayed in the streets… Also, because of the places that (the barricades) were carried out, in Altamira, you can’t do anything in Altamira, you have to do this in the center of Caracas,” one barricader, who also preferred to be anonymous, said.

So why did the Guarimbas peter out? From a big protest in Caracas to barricades of main roads in other cities, the right-wing then also set up local barricades in their own communities. 

This was undoubtedly the straw which broke the camel’s back. In fact the barricade slogan, “he who tires, loses,” was meant to inspire people in their local communities to weather the formidable storm.

But the slogans didn’t stop people from getting tired of being barricaded in for months, without access to work, school, health, and food- no matter how disaffected these sectors were from the government.

In fact, the violent barricader I spoke to even admitted that his life in Altamira was “too affected” by the barricades.

Rather than capitalizing on local discontent, the guarimberos managed to alienate their upper and middle class support base by terrorizing them in their own homes. Even their fellow students became sick and tired of the university strike — which meant many were delayed in graduating.

With no desire to engage with the popular sectors in the country’s barrios – who the barricade leaders identified as home to the “Chavista collectives” that were “even more their enemy than the police” — the movement literally had nowhere to go inside of Venezuela. 

“They tried maybe once to bring (the barricades) up here… but the collectives, the organised community, we chased them out,” said community activist Laura from a community radio station in the eastern barrio of Petare, whose local community went head to head with a group of guarimberos, not far from where they had managed to decapitate a motorcyclist in a barbed wire trap. 

“People would do the same again,” she said

2016 = More Guarimbas? 

I was told by another former barricader that “if we have to take to the streets again then we will, but you know that’s not so easy, it involves organization”.

Despite the fact that barricades across main roads and targeted arson attacks continue to take place in Merida and Tachira, as Laura told me, it is unlikely that more barricades on a national scale will erupt this year because the rightwing is focusing its energies on its new found power in the National Assembly, as well as on organizing the recall referendum against president Nicolas Maduro for mid-2016. 

The problem for the right-wing is that the latter requires a much more consolidated level of organization than the violent barricades ever did, and it can’t be pulled off through riding the wave of media lies and discontent.

In order to organize a recall referendum, the opposition will have to collect the signatures of 20 percent of nationally registered voters – that means approximately just under 4 million signatures. And although the opposition won big at the National Assembly elections last December, they only managed to do so because of mass Chavista abstention – not because they substantially increased their vote or political presence. 

In spite of the discontent, says Laura, “the opposition know they still don’t have the people in the street … that’s why more guarimbas would be a last resort.”

And in the meantime, Chavismo is looking to regroup. In the streets, in community media, and in workplaces.

The violent barricades were the result of absolute frustration by the right-wing after having exhausted all options to oust Chavismo. But although the right-wing may have had a short term game plan to deal a series of blows to the government, they have never had an overall long-term political strategy.

While the right-wing National Assembly continues to attempt to weaken the Bolivarian revolution and its gains through legislating and the option of a recall referendum is open, it’s possible that further violence may be kept at bay. 

But if the Supreme Court blocks legislative decisions, or the recall is a failure for the right-wing, “In that scenario, I think it’s possible that all hell will break loose,” states Laura.

Whether it’s 2006 or 2016, violence is always on the opposition’s cards, especially when it has exhausted all other means. 

Merida, May 10^th 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s new Labour Law for Workers (Lottt) came into effect this week, guaranteeing shorter working hours, longer maternity leave and pensions for all Venezuelans.

Described by the Venezuelan government as the “most advanced labour law in the world”, the Lottt reduces the working week from 44 hours to 40, and requires that employers provide two consecutive days a week off.

When the law came into effect on Tuesday, labour minister Maria Iglesias stated that the new working hours are part of the process towards a “just distribution of wealth”.

The following day, Carabobo state labour affairs committee president Jose Joaquin Vargas hailed the law as an important part of the transition from “capitalism to socialism”, while last week vice president of the National Federation of Public Sector Workers Franklin Rondon described it as “historic”.

“We are in a historic moment, in 14 years the achievements we have obtained for workers are numerous; we have achieved much more than in the last forty years,” Rondon told VTV on 5 May.

Vargas also urged workers to ensure their employers and unions act in accordance with the Lottt.

For the next six weeks, the government will be inspecting workplaces to ensure employers adhere to the new requirements. Although employers were informed earlier in the year that they would need to make any necessary changes prior to 7 May, on Tuesday Iglesias stated that inspections over the next six weeks will be “corrective in nature”. The minister warned that penalties will be imposed on employers who fail to adhere to the Lottt after 15 June.

However, workers are already reporting breaches of the new laws. In Miranda state, employees of processed meat manufacturer Industrias Alimenticias de Corralito (Inacor) have denounced their employer. A worker spokesperson, Peggy Serrano, alleged that management made a series of surprise changes to the timetable that could result in employees being forced to work overtime.

A Decade in the Making

Along with establishing new working hours, the Lottt prohibits unfair dismissal, outsourcing, guarantees the right to work for both women and people with disabilities and increases maternity leave.

Under the Lottt, Venezuela now has the world’s third longest maternity leave. Mothers are entitled to six weeks pre-natal leave, and twenty post-natal. Fathers are also entitled to two weeks paternal leave. Under the law, the same conditions apply to parents who adopt a child under three years of age.

All workers are also now entitled to retirement pensions, including full time mothers and the self employed.

The Lottt is the result of nearly a decade of discussions in both the national assembly and the labour movement.

When he approved the law last April, former president Hugo Chavez stated that, “In more than 200 years of republican history I am absolutely positive that there has never been a work law….that has been debated so much as this one.”

Is it a good idea to begin the transition through the Supreme Court (TSJ)? Perhaps. In any case, it is the path charted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who—following January 3rd—wields enormous influence over Venezuela’s interim authorities and all opposition players, including María Corina Machado.

Marco Rubio himself stated this on October 9, with Dinorah Figuera by his side: “To achieve a peaceful transition—which is what we desire, a peaceful transition toward a permanent and lasting democracy— a great deal of hard work must be done, along with some patience, and free and fair elections. But beyond mere free and fair elections, there will be a need for institutions that not only uphold democracy but also sustain stability, progress, prosperity, and freedom for the people of Venezuela for the foreseeable future.”

Those institutions are, fundamentally, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) and the National Electoral Council (CNE). In that order.

The argument is simple yet very powerful. We have seen in Venezuela that it is possible to win an election (such as the National Assembly vote in 2015 and the presidential election in 2024) and yet have that victory yield no practical effect: in 2015, the election’s impact was nullified via the TSJ, and in 2024, via both the CNE and the TSJ.

Rubio knows this well, as he has been monitoring Venezuelan politics for many years and has surely heard the explanation of how the regime stripped those election results of their meaning through the TSJ and the CNE. In all likelihood, he heard those explanations from Machado herself. This is the path currently being pursued by the negotiating table comprising the interim authorities and the delegation from the 2015 National Assembly. So far, there have been three results. First, Article 65 of the Organic Law of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) was reformed to improve the balance between lawmakers and civil society representatives within the Judicial Nominations Committee—a body for which 127 candidates have already been proposed. Next, a council was appointed to verify the credentials of TSJ nominees; this council includes four of Venezuela’s most serious and respected legal experts. Third, civilian organizations were invited to put forward members for the Judicial Nominations Committee.

This week, both the Judicial Nominations Committee and the verification council are being formally established. The subsequent step is to call upon legal experts to apply for positions on the TSJ.

Given the current circumstances, it is to be expected that the negotiating table and the Trump administration will exert influence over the entire process, just as they have been doing. In fact, Juan Miguel Matheus—a member of the opposition team at the negotiating table—told El Pitazo that the 12 civil society members who will sit on the Nominations Committee will be selected through that table.

With a transition process in mind, why would having a competent TSJ in place within a couple of months be significant?

For a fundamental reason: under the state model established by the 1999 Constitution, the TSJ holds the final institutional say regarding any decision made by the Venezuelan state. The TSJ has the power to strike down laws passed by the National Assembly, declare presidential decrees null and void, annul acts of the National Electoral Council (CNE), and review rulings from any court in the country.

Therefore—and drawing on Venezuela’s past experience—if we aim to hold free elections, it is far better to approach them with a competent TSJ already in place. A capable Supreme Court of Justice could play a robust role in defending elections based on standards of electoral integrity.

Therefore, initiating the transition through a new Supreme Court is a good idea.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The new US charge adds to the existing drug trafficking case against Venezuela’s former president and first lady.

Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were charged in the US state of New York with conspiring to commit torture in connection with allegations that they tortured political opponents to maintain their power.

The charge announced on Thursday in a Manhattan federal court adds one count of conspiracy to commit torture to the drug trafficking charges the couple already faced.

Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty to the drug charges and have been held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since their capture. Their trial is scheduled for June 1.

The charges pile on an ongoing criminal case against Maduro and Flores. A superseding indictment accuses Maduro of working with cartel groups to move cocaine through Venezuela toward the United States.

This is a developing story…