Opposition reaffirms Machado

The Unitary Democratic Platform (PUD), Venezuela's main opposition coalition, met in Caracas on Sunday, 18 October, and agreed to 'recognise and support the leadership of María Corina Machado'. Machado, who has lived in exile since 2025, joined the meeting by video from Panama City. The coalition presented a 14-point document that was read out by Biagio Pilieri, a journalist and former political prisoner of Italian-Venezuelan origin. The document makes presidential elections the first priority in a transition the PUD wants to be peaceful and orderly. The plan calls for free, competitive and verifiable elections, as well as the release of all political prisoners, the safe return of exiles, an end to political persecution and the lifting of disqualifications imposed for political reasons. El Mundo puts the number of political prisoners still held at between 300 and 400, and says the PUD also wants the dismantling of the repressive apparatus that it links to Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. Roberto Enríquez, the PUD's secretary general, summed up the meeting this way:

“Democracy, freedom and elections are inevitable.”

Machado's return and the US plan

Machado told Fox News that her return to Venezuela is linked to the third phase of a three-stage plan promoted by US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She compared the end of the chavista movement, which has governed for 27 years, to the fall of the Berlin Wall. El Mundo notes that the PUD's 14 points are separate from the three-point Washington plan of stabilisation, recovery and reconciliation, and democratic transition through elections, although much of the content overlaps. DW reports that Machado has tried to return at least seven times and that the chavista government has blocked her from doing so. Speaking virtually at the event, Machado said:

“We are at the beginning of a new era. Finally we will make the liberal democratic republic a reality. Venezuela will be free.”

Elections and the interim government

Venezuela has not declared a date for a new presidential vote. Since 3 January the country has been led by interim president Delcy Rodríguez of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who had been Nicolas Maduro's vice president before a United States military operation captured Maduro. Al Jazeera reports that Trump has backed Rodríguez despite her past role, and that critics say he has been reluctant to press her for elections, preferring a plan that starts with stabilising the country and economic recovery. DW reports that Machado's party, Vente Venezuela, has demanded elections in 2027, but the 14-point document sets no date. Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition's former presidential candidate, wrote on social media in support of the proposals:

“The will of the Venezuelans must once again govern the destiny of our nation.”

The statement comes as a third round of talks between the government and part of the opposition is under way in Caracas. Machado was not invited to those talks, but she said she would not obstruct the process.