One year ago, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, pipping President Donald Trump to the post.

Since then she has been attempting to return to Venezuela, the home country she was forced to flee into exile in December 2025.

Her failed efforts have included a clandestine maritime operation from Panama and a chartered aircraft, as well as attempts to get on commercial flights, sources within her camp with firsthand knowledge of the operations told the Miami Herald.

Machado’s team say there have been at least seven attempts to return, all of which have been unsuccessful, which has prompted speculation that an outside government may be trying to prevent her from going back.

The U.S. removed Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro in a dramatic military operation in January, and put his vice-president Delcy Rodríguez in charge instead. Many had expected Machado, as the main opposition leader, to be running the country by now instead.

Trump administration officials have denied they are holding Machado back, but have said that on some occasions they have advised that she not return to the country due to safety concerns.

The aviation authority of Curaçao, a Dutch Caribbean island, told Dutch media it had been refused landing permission for a plane carrying Machado on her way back to Venezuela at the end of September after a “request from higher up”.

Peter Steinmetz, head of the Curaçao Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA), did not say who made the request.

The private plane was due to fly from Panama, where Machado is living in exile, to Curaçao on 22 September. An attempt to fly her to Aruba the same day also fell through.

Despite this Machado remains determined to return and will try another time this month, according to her party Vente Venezuela. The party’s secretary of organisation, Henry Alviarez, told El Pais in early October that she will arrive in the country in “a matter of days.”

Machado, a conservative often described as Venezuela’s Iron Lady, has been tirelessly fighting for democracy in the country for decades – one of the main reasons cited by the Nobel Prize Committee for awarding her the Peace Prize last year.

Trump has long coveted the peace prize, and had hoped to win it last year off the back of questionable claims he has solved multiple wars.

Machado responded by thanking the U.S. leader and praising his “courage and vision”. She even presented him with her Nobel Peace Prize medal during a meeting at the White House in January, which he has long coveted for himself. She said it was recognition of his commitment to her country’s freedom.

If the intention was to help secure her return to Venezuela to lead the country by currying favor with Trump, it did not work.

Trump has said it would be difficult for Machado to lead , claiming she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”

Her party is widely believed to have won the 2024 elections rejected by Maduro, and calls for her to come home have continued in Venezuela in her absence.

Hundreds of Machado’s supporters took to the streets at the end of September to demand her safe return and presidential elections that could lead to a democratic transition in the country.

On the same weekend, Machado’s aide arrived in the country. Claudia Macero, who ran press operations for the opposition leadrer, returned from exile to a cheering crowd at Caracas airport.

“It is time to come home. It is time to recover the country,” Macero said, although she did not yet know when Machado herslef would be able to return.

“Maria Corina is trying every day to come home,” she said. “Evidently there is a very difficult process, but this will come to an end.”

Opposition activists have said Venezuela’s government are blocking her return. The authorities deny this.

Machado was barred from running in the country’s last presidential elections in July 2024, but her stand-in candidate Edmundo González was widely believed to have won with almost two-thirds of the vote.

But Maduro claimed victory and began a fierce crackdown on dissidents who spoke out against the official result, forcing many opposition politicians into hiding, including Machado.

Announcing her win Nobel Peace Prize win in 2025, committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said at the time: “In the past year, Miss Machado has been forced to live in hiding.

“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.”