Venezuela: Machado Ready to Meet Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, Her Party Says
POLITICS · VENEZUELA
Key Facts
- —The country Venezuela, about 28.5 million people, has been run by acting president Delcy Rodríguez since US forces seized Nicolás Maduro on 3 January 2026.
- —What happened On Sunday 4 October, Vente Venezuela’s communications chief, Claudia Macero, said María Corina Machado is willing to hold direct talks with Rodríguez to “accelerate” change.
- —Who is involved The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, abroad since December 2025; Delcy Rodríguez; and her brother Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, whom Macero also named.
- —What it means for you No meeting is scheduled. Any direct contact would be the clearest sign yet of whether a 2027 presidential election becomes realistic.
- —Still open Whether the acting government answers, when the opposition leader can fly home after seven failed attempts (her team’s count, as of 4 October), and when a vote is held.
María Corina Machado is ready to sit down with Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, her party said on Sunday 4 October. The aim, it said, is to “accelerate” the road to a free presidential election.
Claudia Macero, communications chief of the party Vente Venezuela, made the remarks in an interview with the journalist Patricia Janiot. No meeting has been arranged, and the government had not publicly replied by Sunday evening.
What Vente Venezuela said
Macero said the opposition leader is willing to open a “direct dialogue” with Delcy Rodríguez or Jorge Rodríguez, the Assembly president. The condition is that it helps “accelerate the process towards real change”, El Cooperante reported.
“It is not the first time María Corina has said she is willing to sit down,” Macero said, “with a very clear agenda.” That held, she added, “if it benefits the country’s freedom and helps accelerate the processes”.
The offer repeats one made public last week rather than opening a new channel. On 29 September the US senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, wrote on X after a phone call with her.
Scott said she was “willing and ready to sit down with those who currently hold power, including Delcy Rodríguez”. She replied the same day that she was “determined to return home” and to work with all who would rebuild the nation.
The fight over an election date
Macero said the opposition camp is holding to a presidential election in July 2027, according to El Cooperante. She rejected talk in government circles of a vote as late as 2030.
“We have heard spokespeople say it will be in 2030,” she said. Some, she argued, are betting on Donald Trump’s term ending first. “That cannot be,” she added.
Once home, Macero said, the Nobel laureate plans to “organise, mobilise and build agreements”. That includes citizen assemblies around the country, held “with or without” her.
Separate from the talks already under way
A second round of US-backed talks between the acting government and the National Assembly elected in 2015 opened in Caracas in mid-September. The Rio Times covered the opening in Venezuela Opens Transition Talks With Its Leader’s Legal Basis Unclear.
Macero called a meeting with Rodríguez a “different matter” from that table. As far as she knew, Vente Venezuela had received no formal invitation to join it.
“María Corina does not necessarily have to be sitting at the table to contribute,” she said. She still called the party “optimistic”, citing the unblocking of news websites and the closing of court cases.
Still outside the country
The opposition leader left Venezuela in December 2025 to collect the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. She has tried to return seven times in eight months, Macero said.
Macero herself flew home on 27 September after more than a year abroad. She said her leader holds no valid Venezuelan passport and travels on a Panamanian travel document instead.
The government denies blocking her. Interior minister Diosdado Cabello called the complaints a “show” on 30 September and said: “Let her come,” La Verdad reported.
Jorge Rodríguez had denied on 25 September that the authorities were stopping her return, the same report said. Those denials leave a door formally open, though no travel date has followed.
What Is Not Yet Known
Delcy Rodríguez had not publicly responded to the offer by Sunday evening. It is unclear whether any channel for a meeting exists, or who would broker one.
No date has been set for the return or for a presidential election. The reports did not say when the Janiot interview was recorded; for the leader’s background, see Who Is María Corina Machado? Venezuela’s Nobel Laureate, Her Record and What Comes Next.
Sources: Monitoreamos, 4 October 2026; El Cooperante, 4 October 2026; El Diario, 4 October 2026; Monitoreamos on Senator Rick Scott’s post, 29 September 2026; Monitoreamos on Machado’s reply, 29 September 2026; La Verdad on Diosdado Cabello’s remarks, 1 October 2026.
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