The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado received this Friday at Madrid City Hall the Golden Key of the city, a distinction reserved almost exclusively for heads of state but with which the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, wanted to recognize the leadership of the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Machado thanked the distinction with a brief speech in which he reviewed his last years of struggle, since the denunciation of the 2024 electoral fraud, which he described as a heroic struggle by the anti-Chavista forces that managed to “express the will of a people,” he said in the Casa de la Villa.
According to the veteran politician. Those elections marked a before and after. “The world saw us with pity, but we went to the meeting and united a country around the desire that our children can return home as soon as possible,” she said excitedly. “We faced tyranny and defeated them. That gave legitimacy to a subsequent action, the removal of Maduro,” he summarized. While he spoke, the screams of the Venezuelans filtered into the room of the old Madrid City Hall, interrupting his words. “People determined to be free are unstoppable,” she concluded excitedly. At his side, Martínez-Almeida recognized “someone who has fought all his life for his country” and highlighted that there is a process of freedom underway “that we caress with the tips of our fingers.”
The display organized by the City Council for Corina Machado was reserved for big occasions: reception of the council’s top staff at street level, maceros dressed in gala clothes, a uniformed guard and an orchestra composed exclusively of Venezuelan musicians. The municipal team and the last former mayors of Madrid: Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, José María Álvarez del Manzano, Esperanza Aguirre and Ana Botella—all except Manuela Carmena—joined the tribute in a hand kiss held before the flags of Madrid, Spain and Venezuela. On the street, about two hundred Venezuelans waited two hours for the appearance of the Venezuelan leader who made the mayor wait 20 minutes. It was the last act of a day in which he toured the entire parliamentary right in a few hours.
María Corina Machado arrived from the headquarters of Disenso, Vox’s foundation, after meeting Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right party. Previously she was at the PP headquarters in Génova, where she was also received at street level with effusiveness and a great display of hugs by the conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Before arriving in Madrid, Machado passed through France and the Netherlands, where he met with Emmanuel Macron and the Dutch Prime Minister, Rob Jettens, in the middle of a brief European tour. In both meetings he insisted that “the international community has a clear responsibility: to accompany a process that must be peaceful, orderly and based on the citizen will expressed in free elections.” And in his message, like other opposition leaders, he stressed the need for an electoral calendar as a way out of the anomalous situation in which the country finds itself, with a president imprisoned in the United States and a president in charge, Delcy Rodríguez, following orders from Washington.
The arrival in Madrid, however, has been less friendly than in their previous appointments. Machado will not see Pedro Sánchez despite the invitation to meet with him issued by La Moncloa, and his reception at the Madrid City Council was also opposed by the PSOE and Más Madrid, who described the recognition as “a private party for the mayor.” “It is a distinction reserved for heads of state on an official visit. María Corina Machado is not head of state of any country. If the PP wants to organize a private party, let them pay for it from Genoa,” said Rita Maestre. “It rains in the wet,” Maestre insisted, “they already wanted to give the city medal to Israel during the genocide, now they are going to give the Community medal to Trump’s United States. It is indecent and indefensible.”
Until now, the Golden Key of the city had been given to Heads of State, although with two exceptions: the Crown Prince of Japan, Naruhito, in 2008, and in 2011, to the now King Charles of England, when he was still a prince.
In his speech, Machado once again mentioned the idea of “bringing our children back.” In each of her interventions this is the central idea on which she has built her image in Venezuela and making her the reference figure among the opposition to Chavismo. The latest surveys, from Bloomberg, which gives it a 53% positive rating, to Megaanalysis, which raises that support to more than 70% in an electoral scenario, reflect its power inside and outside the country.
Machado stated on Wednesday about his refusal to meet with Sánchez that “there are times when certain meetings are not convenient,” he said in an interview on Cadena Cope. Regarding his return to Venezuela, he stated: “Venezuelans around the world are that force of nature who have taken our voice to the entire world before returning. As soon as we meet those objectives, I will return to Venezuela to finish this phase of struggle from within.”
