Venezuela's Machado returns from exile, urges 2027 elections

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has returned from more than ten months of exile and called for presidential elections in 2027.

• Machado, at a news conference in Caracas, thanked the Trump administration for opening the "floodgate to freedom" by seizing President Nicolas Maduro in January.
• Machado said she had received no message from Rodriguez or Washington and would not personally join election negotiations with the government.
• Interim President Delcy Rodriguez said elections would be held "with the world as witness" without specifying a date and ordered no detentions without judicial order.
• Machado criticized a US oil deal that hands over 20 percent of Venezuela's oil reserves as lacking transparency.