The trip that changed everything: Venezuela waits to see if María Corina Machado will be able to return

What will happen to the Venezuelan opposition when its political and media star leaves the country and may not be able to return? That is the big question currently facing Venezuelan politics after María Corina Machado left the country to travel to Oslo and receive (a day late) her Nobel Peace Prize. Her journey, presented as a historic — and heroic — feat, now opens up an unpredictable scenario: what happens if the opposition figure most legitimized in recent years to challenge the Nicolás Maduro regime is unable to return?

According to her collaborators, Machado will spend some time abroad, capitalizing on the attention from the award to place Venezuela at the center of the global stage. It is not known whether this will be weeks or days, or whether Chavista regime will allow her to return when she wants to. In recent interviews, the opposition leader has repeatedly said that she plans to come back. “I won’t say when or how it will happen, but I will do everything possible to be able to return and also to put an end to this tyranny very soon,” she told reporters in Oslo. “I will return when the security measures are in place, whether or not Maduro remains in power,” she added.

In her speech, read by her daughter in Oslo, María Corina Machado maintained the expectation of imminent change in Venezuela. “The world has marveled at what we have achieved. And soon it will witness one of the most moving sights of our time: our loved ones coming home.” It is still difficult to imagine under what circumstances. It is not clear what will happen next, and there are more questions than answers. Will there be a regime change soon, as she predicts? What happens if it doesn’t occur and she cannot return? Will her leadership falter in exile as has happened to so many others?

Perhaps the only point of consensus is that Machado’s gamble was extraordinarily risky because it jeopardizes her most valuable asset: being able to challenge Maduro from within the country. Christopher Sabatini, from the Chatham House think tank, warns that if she is not physically in Venezuela, Machado will lose her emotional connection to the people — a link that made her the most influential opposition figure in recent years. “Venezuelans want someone who is with them, who suffers what they suffer. If she is away — and nothing changes — they will end up looking for another figure,” says Sabatini. Choosing to stay in Venezuela, he says, “is a very powerful symbol” in a country from which eight million Venezuelans have fled.

“It’s very important that María Corina is in Venezuela. It’s part of her brand,” says Phil Gunson, senior analyst at Crisis Group, from Caracas. For Gunson, Machado’s decision to remain in the country has been a fundamental part of her political identity, especially in contrast to other opposition leaders who, after going into exile, lost influence on the domestic stage. “She says the transition has already begun, that Maduro has no alternative, but the problem is what happens if this fails,” reflects the analyst, who has lived in Venezuela for 26 years. “If this fails, and she stays outside of the country, she risks losing relevance,” says Gunson.

Venezuelan writer and analyst Moisés Naím urges against drawing conclusions too quickly. “The Nobel ceremony, regardless of whether she attends or not, is a very significant element of legitimacy that puts the Maduro regime in a difficult position,” he said on Tuesday, before it was known whether Machado would arrive in time for the ceremony.

Naím disagrees with the comparisons between María Corina Machado’s leadership and that of other opposition figures who ended up in exile. “She is not another leader, she is not Juan Guaidó [who self-declared himself president of Venezuela], she is a leader who garnered 67% of the vote [for her candidate Edmundo González]. There is no politician more legitimate than María Corina,” he argues. Naím also does not believe that the opposition will suffer from her being abroad: “If she has managed to accomplish all this while in hiding, imagine what she can do while on the global stage.”

Political scientist Marisela Betancourt, however, warns that Machado risks falling into the same trap as Guaidó. That is, that international legitimacy — now amplified by the Nobel — may not compensate for the loss of real influence within the country. For Betancourt, the strength of Machado’s work in hiding was already waning. “It was a paralysis in the face of reality. She has very important leadership, but all the bets have been placed on the United States, governed by an irrational president.”

Betancourt is among those who believe that Machado would not have been able to leave without some kind of agreement with the Maduro regime. The expert argues that the regime benefited from Machado leaving the country. She is an opposition leader that Venezuelan authorities have labeled a “terrorist” but cannot act against without undermining its own authority. But outside the country, according to Betancourt, loses her capacity for direct action in a fractured society. “Once she leaves, there is no turning back,” says the political scientist.

Machado’s gamble has shifted the political landscape, but it hasn’t reshaped it. Whether or not she can return to Venezuela will define not only her own political destiny, but also the hope that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have placed in her. In any case, many of these developments will depend on Donald Trump, as he continues to play several games at once.

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