Back home in Venezuela, Machado walks a line between her supporters and Washington

Maria Corina Machado came home on Sunday to the largest crowds Venezuela has seen this year. Her problem now is that the road to the elections her supporters are chanting for runs through a negotiation she is not part of.

Tens of thousands of people lined the road from Barquisimeto to Caracas as her caravan rolled in, waving flags, chanting her name and hanging rosaries on her. Her supporters call her the next president. She says a presidential vote should happen in 2027. The talks actually under way in Caracas run on a different track. The Trump administration supports a negotiation between acting President Delcy Rodriguez's government and opposition groups that does not include Machado's Vente Venezuela movement. Those talks would rebuild the electoral council and the top court before any election. Both bodies are staffed by ruling party loyalists, and both backed Nicolas Maduro in the disputed 2024 election, against the voting tallies Machado's movement published showing its candidate had won. American forces captured Maduro in January.

Washington has kept its distance from her return in public. Trump said on Sunday that he had not known about her plans to come home. A person briefed on her movements disputed that account to Reuters. "She's a very nice woman," Trump said of Machado. "But we're doing really well in Venezuela." On Fox News the same day he said the United States has total control of Venezuela and is taking out millions of barrels of oil a week. In September he said it was too soon to consider democratic elections in the country.

Rodriguez answered the return on Monday during a visit to a military hospital in Caracas. "I hope the dialogue continues to provide a space for political participation, and that those who have harmed Venezuela, those who called for sanctions and external aggression, feel some remorse and regret," she said. "I hope both the dialogue and the program for democratic coexistence and peace can provide a space where all voices can be heard, where voices seeking the good of the country can be heard."

Machado's adviser David Smolansky told Reuters she plans to meet victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, the families of political prisoners, members of the international community and leaders of the democratic movement. "She will work proactively for a date for free and fair elections," he said. She spent years building Trump as an ally. She now has to press for an election date without breaking with the administration that holds the real power over the government she opposes, while that government negotiates the rules of the next vote with other people.