"A People Determined to Be Free Cannot be Stopped"

International Reports (IR): On 3 January 2026, the US intervened militarily in Venezuela and removed dictator Nicolás Maduro. How did you feel when you received the news?

María Corina Machado: To have an idea of what that day meant to us, you have to understand what we Venezuelans have been going through for 27 years. Thousands and thousands of lives have been destroyed by the tyranny ruling our country. And at that moment, people saw something like justice for the first time. The fact that the man who has been at the head of this criminal structure in our country for many years now has to face justice has triggered the feeling among many that the truth will finally come to light.

So, the reaction in Venezuela was initially great joy. In the beginning, however, this joy was visible not so much in the country itself as it was in the reaction of exiled Venezuelans all over the world. The cloak of terror that the regime had put over the country was not gone at that moment, nor is it gone today. It has developed cracks, but it is still there. That's why I would say that in Venezuela, there were these two feelings at the same time: on the one hand, great joy, and on the other hand, the fear that feeds on the realisation that the regime is not yet gone.

IR: And what significance will be attributed to 3 January 2026 in the history of your country?

Machado: It will be seen as a symbol of a path that will lead us to justice and freedom. I feel that we Venezuelans today – regardless of how things have developed in detail since then – are convinced that this process is now irreversible.

IR: Even so, let's stay briefly with the developments of the past few months. The situation on the ground is confusing, especially for distant observers. It starts with the fact that you don't really know who is actually ruling Venezuela: the Chavista regime under the new leader Delcy Rodríguez, or the United States. And it continues with the question of whether anything has noticeably changed for the average person in Venezuela compared with six months ago. Does this person see economic improvements? Can people express themselves more freely?

Machado: The question of who is actually ruling is indeed complex. I think it depends on the respective policy area, and even for us Venezuelans, it is difficult to make a complete assessment at the moment.

Has anything changed? Definitely! Last weekend, our civil society, students, workers, and political parties organised more than 100 events. This emerged progressively after 3 January. People began gathering and organising themselves in churches. There have also been more and more events at universities.

On the other hand, what I have just said applies: The repressive apparatus of the state is still intact, there is still fear. People still don't speak completely freely. Hundreds of my colleagues still live in exile and have not been able to return to Venezuela. There are also still more than 500 political prisoners. The torture centres are still in operation. The state repression squads and the state-directed paramilitaries have not disappeared from the streets.

It was only last Thursday that we learned of the dramatic case of Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, a Venezuelan who "disappeared" in January 2025. His mother had spent months scouring the prisons to look for him. Everywhere the same answer: “We don't have your son”. On Thursday, the regime admitted that her son had been dead for nine months, having died in custody. They tortured and buried him and then mocked his mother.

We will see more and more such atrocities, tragedies, and human rights violations come to light. This will inevitably be a difficult process in which we will have to realise that there must be justice in our society for forgiveness to be possible at some point.

IR: The US has drafted a three-phase plan for Venezuela that is first about stability and economic recovery before the political transition is to come. How confident are you that the United States is committed to the democratic transition and will not eventually settle for an authoritarian but at least obedient regime in Caracas?

Machado: I am absolutely sure that Venezuela will be free and that we will walk the path towards democracy for several reasons. First of all, there is our most important ally in this cause, which is the United States. I have spoken at length about these issues with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and I trust that his assessment of the regime and of what it means not only for Venezuela itself, but for all of Latin America and also the United States is accurate enough to know that we urgently need to move forward with this political transition.

Secondly, the support that I also receive from other governments – but especially from people all over the world – is enormous, be it in Europe, in Latin America, or in other democratic states. Everyone knows that those who govern in Caracas today rely on exactly the same structures as before. Nicolás Maduro has been removed, but the structure remains. It is the same regime that committed all the crimes we have already talked about.

The most important reason, however, is the Venezuelan people. I am really impressed, and I admire how mature these people and even the humblest of Venezuelan citizens are. They immediately make the connections and know that if they are to do well economically, economic freedom is indispensable. But this economic freedom must go hand in hand with political freedom. And when workers or trade unionists take to the streets peacefully today, they of course do so for decent wages – because salaries are currently ridiculous: A teacher earns one dollar a day. But they also immediately establish the connection I have just spoken of and also demand elections.

So, Venezuela today is a country with a pronounced political maturity in which we have both. It is the simultaneity of the fear of a still-criminal state apparatus, of human tragedies in a destroyed country, and on the other hand, of a hope that is growing steadily – because we know that a people determined to be free cannot be stopped.

IR: Let's take a closer look at a possible democratic transition. What role do you see for your party, Vente Venezuela, in this transition? That of the leader of a united bloc confronting the current government?

Machado: That's an important question. I think that in retrospect, 2023 will be identified as the turning point. At the beginning of that year, the situation in Venezuela seemed hopeless. It was said that nothing could be done, that the regime would last forever. The parties, they said, were divided, the people no longer believed in anything. But the opposition parties also showed maturity. Not only did they coordinate, but they decided to hold primaries across a broad spectrum of parties from left to conservative with a view to the 2024 presidential elections. And we did so completely detached from the regime's infrastructure: without the National Electoral Council and its voting machines, without money – basically, without anything.

It was quite audacious to get society to hold its own elections. More than ten candidates competed. The regime thought that hardly anyone would participate in the primaries. It expected 100,000, a maximum of 300,000 people. But in the end, there were more than three million. I remember getting a phone call on the morning of 22 October 2023 and being told that the ballots we had printed were running out.

I had the honour – and thus also the responsibility – of winning these primaries with 92 per cent of the vote. The next day, I sat down with all the other parties and told them that this constellation had to be transformed into a grand coalition in which positions were to be allocated based not on proportional representation, but on merit.

IR: However, the regime did not stand idly by for long...

Machado: On 20 January 2024, they basically arrested my entire team. I was left alone. So, I had to start from the beginning, approached the other parties again, and chose the best people.

IR: Only to be excluded from the presidential election by the government. Edmundo González ran in your place, actually winning the election. The government, however, falsified the result.

Machado: But we were able to prove it to the whole world. The extraordinary thing about these elections on 28 July 2024 was that we were able to mobilise and organise more than one million volunteers, who secured the election documents on site at the polling stations at great risk in order to be able to prove the electoral fraud.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it shows that we have already proven that we can forge this grand coalition across the political spectrum. Vente Venezuela is a classic liberal party, but our alliance also brings together social democrats and conservatives. We are an alliance that transcends party boundaries, that even integrates some groups that once adhered to the Chavista government camp as well as parts of civil society and student movements. We must preserve this alliance as a large social movement.

IR: Many are wondering what concrete steps need to be taken now, and at what pace. What needs to happen so that there can be new elections and for you to be able to return to Venezuela, and when will that be?

Machado: The return of Venezuelans living in exile – including me – is a step that must happen soon. This is also part of what we have been discussing with the US and other actors. As far as the timetable for elections is concerned, the technical aspect is important. The electoral system in Venezuela is basically destroyed, and we have to rebuild it first. According to my estimates, about 40 percent of those who were actually eligible to vote were unable to exercise this right in the presidential elections in July 2024. These were Venezuelans abroad and young people who had not been allowed to register, among others.

So, the first thing we have to do is to put together a voter register that reflects reality. Everyone who is eligible to vote should be able to vote – and only once, which is also important. That means we will have to register four to five million Venezuelans abroad and three to four million people within Venezuela. In addition, we must ensure that the entire election process be observed from beginning to end. We want to deliver a real blueprint for free and fair elections. Technically, this will certainly take seven to nine months. But to initiate such a process, a political decision is needed. This insight must now prevail, and that includes the appointment of a new National Electoral Council.

IR: In light of a future democratic transition, you mentioned two words earlier that seem important to us: justice and forgiveness. Could you elaborate on that?

Machado: In this context, I would first like to come back to something that I have already said: Many people who were once supporters or part of the Chávez and then the Maduro regime are now part of our coalition. At my rallies in Venezuela, people who had previously been on the side of the regime sometimes came to me. They hugged me, cried, asked me for forgiveness. And I always said, “We are all part of the same country”. I realised that many of these people – military personnel, civil servants – had also been something like prisoners of the regime in a certain way.

Of course, there are also particularly serious cases of human rights crimes, some of which are being investigated by the International Criminal Court. We must not forget that there are people whose children have “disappeared” or been murdered, such as Mrs Navas, whom I spoke about earlier. We cannot tell them that there will be complete impunity for all perpetrators, especially since there would always be the danger of some people practicing vigilante justice.

At the same time, we must face up to the need to give certain guarantees to some perpetrators, and in many cases, this will not be easy. This is a very difficult situation, and I am well aware that I will have the great responsibility of standing in front of the country and asking for trust so that we can provide appropriate arrangements and incentives to those who want to help make this political transition possible.

IR: At the end of our conversation, we would like to take a look at the international level. What role did Chávez's and Maduro's Venezuela play here?

Machado: For years, I have raised international awareness about the fact that what has been happening in Venezuela is causing damage and destroying many lives not only there, but also in the entire Western Hemisphere. During this time, Venezuela has developed into a kind of safe haven for criminal regimes from all over the world, such as Russia and Iran, as well as for criminal groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, for drug cartels, and also for the Colombian guerrillas. They all flocked to Venezuela because it is a country with extraordinary natural resources that they wanted to extract and exploit. And also because of its geographical location. You have to understand that Venezuela is located in the heart of the Americas, with access to the Atlantic Ocean, close to the Panama Canal, a three-hour flight from Miami. It was like a cancer that first attacked Venezuela and from there spread throughout America.

IR: And what place do you see for a free Venezuela in the world? Whose side will it stand on?

Machado: Clearly on the side of Western democracies, of our value partners. If our movement in Venezuela has achieved one thing, it is having united a country along certain values: human dignity, respect for pluralism, solidarity – and, of course, individual responsibility combined with freedom. I will never tire of emphasising that there has been no generation as well prepared for freedom and democracy as is today’s Venezuela. Because this society, this generation, has become even more generous in the hard years it has gone through and is still going through. In all the years of terror, it has also proven its courage. And in the face of terrible divisions – one-third of the population has had to flee – we value family and freedom more than any other generation. Around all these values, we must build close relationships with the nations that share them.

IR: Which brings us to Germany and Europe, among others. Why should we not look indifferently at what is happening in Venezuela?

Machado: A free Venezuela will be a gigantic energy supplier for Europe and also a great ally in security issues. But I want to emphasise one thing above all else: I believe that the democratic transition in Venezuela will trigger shock waves. And not only will they reach Cuba and Nicaragua, where the regimes will fall because the democratisation of Venezuela will be for Latin America what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for Europe, but we will also prove something to the whole world: There may be criminal and destructive regimes that want everyone to believe that the nation they oppress will never rise up against them, but a united people who love freedom can very well do it. What democratic society could be indifferent to that?

This interview was conducted by Sören Soika – originally in Spanish.