By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has vowed to return home quickly, praising U.S. President Donald Trump for toppling her enemy Nicolas Maduro and declaring her movement ready to win a free election.
Trump appears, however, to hope for now to work with interim President Delcy Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro’s government, disappointing the opposition and contributing to nervousness around Venezuela.
“I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” said Machado, 58, an industrial engineer and mother of three who escaped from Venezuela in disguise in October to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which she dedicated to Trump.
“We believe that this transition should move forward,” she told Fox News in an interview. “We won an election (in 2024) by a landslide under fraudulent conditions. In free and fair elections, we will win over 90% of the votes.”
Trump, however, has said the U.S. needs to help address Venezuela’s problems before an election, calling a 30-day timeline unrealistic. “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump told NBC.
SOCIALIST PARTY LOYALISTS STILL CONTROL VENEZUELA
In the interview late on Monday, her first since Maduro was captured by the U.S., Machado did not give her location or any more details on repatriating to Venezuela, where Socialist Party loyalists remain in power and she is under investigation for accusations of inciting the military.
To the dismay of the large diaspora – one in five Venezuelans left during an economic implosion – Trump has said Machado lacks support. The opposition, some international observers and many U.S. allies say the opposition was cheated of victory in the 2024 election, from which Machado was banned and an ally stood instead.
The daughter of a left-wing guerrilla fighter, Rodriguez is a diehard Maduro ally who has denounced his “kidnapping” while also urging respectful relations with Washington.
“Delcy Rodriguez, as you know, is one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narco-trafficking,” Machado said, noting her liaison role with Russia, China and Iran.
PRAISE AND THANKS FOR TRUMP
Machado, who has galvanised an often fractured and demoralized opposition in the last few years, said she would give Trump the Nobel Prize personally.
“January 3rd will go down in history as the day justice defeated a tyranny,” she said of Saturday’s raid.
She thanked Trump for “his courageous vision, the historical actions he has taken against this narco-terrorist regime”.
With the world’s largest oil reserves and the U.S. as its main ally, Venezuela would become the energy hub of the Americas, restore rule of law, open markets and bring exiles home, Machado said.
Trump has, however, been told by the CIA that Rodriguez and other senior officials from Maduro’s government are the best bet to maintain stability, sources said.
One official, Diosdado Cabello, has been on the streets patrolling with security forces. “Always loyal, never traitors. Doubt is betrayal!” they chanted in one of various posts by the Venezuelan government overnight.
Authorities have ordered the arrest of anyone who collaborated with the seizure of Maduro and 14 media workers were briefly detained covering events in Caracas on Monday.
Also, shots were fired on Monday night into the sky in Caracas, which a Venezuelan official said came from police to deter unauthorized drones. “There was no confrontation, the entire country remains completely calm,” vice minister of communications Simon Arrechider told reporters.
With nearly 900 political prisoners still behind bars according to a leading local rights group, Machado’s Vente Venezuela movement demanded on Monday that they be released immediately as a first step towards restoring democracy.
MADURO PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Maduro, 63, pleaded not guilty on Monday to narcotics charges. He said he was a “decent man” and still president of Venezuela while standing in a Manhattan court shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison garb.
He has long denied cocaine-trafficking allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on oil.
Venezuela has about 303 billion barrels in reserves of mostly hard-to-extract heavy oil. But the sector has long been in decline from mismanagement, underinvestment and U.S. sanctions, averaging 1.1 million bpd output last year, a third of its output in the 1970s and much less than producers such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
With the U.S. imposing an embargo, Venezuela’s main oil ports entered their fifth day on Tuesday without delivering crude for state-run PDVSA’s main buyers in Asia.
Venezuela’s bonds extended a rally on investor optimism over a post-Maduro future.
WORRIED WORLD
Rodriguez, Venezuela’s first female head of state, has wavered between angry defiance and potential cooperation with Trump. He has threatened another strike if her government displeases him.
His actions, the biggest U.S. intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama, have brought condemnation from Russia, China and Venezuela’s leftist allies.
Allies have urged adherence to international law.
“It sends a signal that the powerful can do whatever they like,” the U.N. human rights office said in the latest expression of international concern.
Trump has said the U.S. is now in charge of Venezuela and will help revive its oil industry with the help of private companies.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide, Writing by Andrew Cawthorne, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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