By Mayela Armas and Deisy Buitrago
CARACAS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said on Thursday the United States has suggested the country hold presidential elections next year, a timeline she has previously supported, in her first substantive remarks since returning last weekend.
Machado’s return to Venezuela risks straining her ties with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which captured then-President Nicolas Maduro in a January raid. Maduro is facing US drug trafficking and torture charges, which he denies.
Washington has said Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has every right to be in Venezuela, but Trump has also praised acting President Delcy Rodriguez. The Trump administration supports negotiations between the Rodriguez government and opposition groups which do not include Machado’s Vente Venezuela movement on overhauling Venezuela’s electoral council and top court before the next elections.
Machado thanked Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their roles in Maduro’s ouster and said the relationship between the two countries is one of mutual respect and in both nations’ best interests.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio has laid out a sequence of steps for moving toward a democratic transition that makes clear that presidential elections will be held in 2027,” Machado said, adding she would ensure that all eligible Venezuelans can cast ballots in any future election.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rubio has previously said he expects Machado to support the talks.
At a press conference in Caracas, Machado avoided responding when asked about Trump’s comments in January that she did not have sufficient support to immediately lead Venezuela, and this week, that Venezuela could become the 51st state.
Machado has cultivated Trump as an ally for years.
The opposition leader added she was pleased Rodriguez, in remarks earlier in the day, had also backed elections and that those who help the country transition back to democracy will need guarantees. Machado said a transitional justice process, a truth commission and a revamp of state security forces are necessary.
Machado, 59, returned to Venezuela on Sunday after several failed attempts this year. She was barred from running in the 2024 election but her proxy roundly won, according to tallies provided by the opposition at the time. Venezuela’s institutions, however, backed Maduro.
CONTRACT MODIFICATIONS
Venezuela needs transparent contracts, open bidding for public deals and international arbitration to ensure investors and the Venezuelan people receive the most from future investments, Machado said.
Rodriguez’s interim government has signed deals with a variety of companies interested in oil, gas and mining with support from the US. They include a deal between North American Blue Energy Partners and the US government to export production from 17 Venezuelan fields.
Machado said NABEP’s contract, which she has not seen, “evidently does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants,” especially because of the company’s CEO Alejandro Betancourt. Betancourt has been investigated in the United States, Spain and Switzerland, including for money laundering, but never indicted.
“I want to emphasize something to all those investors who are looking at Venezuela today, or who have entered Venezuela in recent times: every legally signed contract will be honored,” Machado said, adding some contracts could be “changed to new terms that we will offer, which will be much better.”
The country needs a deal with the International Monetary Fund to establish how the country will manage its huge debt load and attend to urgent humanitarian needs, Machado said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS
Machado, who lived in hiding for more than a year before leaving the country as many of her close collaborators were detained, said releasing political prisoners is key to restoring democracy.
Venezuela’s opposition and human rights groups have said for years the government uses detentions to stamp out dissent. The government has denied holding political prisoners.
Legal rights group Foro Penal says 322 political prisoners are incarcerated in Venezuela, and more than half of them have not been convicted. Some 11,000 people are under other restrictions such as house arrest.
Foro Penal is focused on ensuring “the destruction of the repressive apparatus,” especially regarding the new top court, the immediate and full liberation of political prisoners, the overturning of repressive laws and setting up an eventual truth commission, its vice president Gonzalo Himiob told Reuters this week.
Rodriguez said earlier on Thursday that more than 9,000 people have been released or had legal restrictions withdrawn under a limited amnesty law.
On Monday, Machado visited her lawyer Perkins Rocha, who was arrested after the 2024 vote and held for 18 months in Caracas’ Helicoide, where advocates and former inmates have alleged torture takes place. Rocha remains under house arrest and had his amnesty request rejected.
(Reporting by Mayela Armas, Deisy Buitrago and Anthony Esposito, Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Rod Nickel)
