Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado

If politics had a betting slip, Venezuela just tore it up mid-hand. The chances of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado returning home by month’s end slid to 41% on Polymarket after Donald Trump tossed a geopolitical curveball, launched a military operation, and detained President Nicolas Maduro. Even Trump, after the strike, while addressing the presser suggested that the United States would step in to “run” Venezuela during a transition period. In one stroke, a return many supporters saw as imminent turned into a high-stakes maybe.This graph seems to be going against the Nobel Prize winner’s dream to take over the Venezuelan government. Earlier, Machado hailed the capture of Maduro by US forces, declaring that Washington had “fulfilled its promise” and signalling what she described as the beginning of a democratic transition in the country.In a statement, Machado said Maduro would now face “international justice for the atrocious crimes committed against Venezuelans and against citizens of many other nations”, adding: “The HOUR OF FREEDOM has arrived!” She argued that Maduro’s refusal to accept a negotiated exit had left the United States with no alternative. “Given his refusal to accept a negotiated exit, the government of the United States has fulfilled its promise to uphold the law,” she said.Machado said that events are a turning point for Venezuela’s political future, calling for what she described as the restoration of popular and national sovereignty. “The time has come for Popular Sovereignty and National Sovereignty to prevail in our country,” she said, pledging to “restore order, free political prisoners, build an exceptional country, and bring our children back home”.She insisted the moment vindicated years of opposition struggle. “We have fought for years, we have given everything, and it has been worth it. What had to happen is happening,” Machado said, casting the capture of Maduro as “the hour of the citizens” who, she said, had “risked everything for democracy on 28 July”.