Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado received the Golden Key of the city at Madrid City Hall this Friday, an honor almost exclusively reserved for heads of state but with which the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, wanted to recognize the leadership of the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner. Machado thanked the distinction with a brief speech in which she reviewed her recent years of struggle, from denouncing the 2024 electoral fraud, which she described as a heroic fight by the anti-Chavista forces that managed “to express the will of a people,” she said at 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 meet it and united a country around the desire that our children can return home as soon as possible,” she said emotionally. “We faced tyranny and defeated it. That gave legitimacy to a subsequent action, the removal of Maduro,” she summarized. While she spoke, the shouts of Venezuelans filtered into the old Madrid City Hall room interrupting her words. “Peoples determined to be free are unstoppable,” she ended emotionally. Beside her, Martínez-Almeida recognized “someone who has fought all her life for her homeland” and highlighted that a process of freedom “that we touch with the tips of our fingers” is underway.
The deployment organized by the City Hall for Corina Machado was reserved for great occasions: reception of the top city council officials at street level, mace bearers dressed in gala, uniformed guards, 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 handshake ceremony held before the flags of Madrid, Spain, and Venezuela. Outside, 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 event of a day in which she toured the entire parliamentary right wing in a few hours.
María Corina Machado arrived from the Disenso headquarters, Vox’s foundation, after meeting with Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right party. Previously, she was at the PP headquarters in Génova, where she was also warmly received at street level with a great display of hugs by the conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Before arriving in Madrid, Machado passed through France and the Netherlands, where she met with Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jettens, amid a brief European tour. In both meetings, she 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 her message, like other opposition leaders, she emphasized the need for an electoral calendar as a way out of the abnormal situation in which the country finds itself, with a president imprisoned in the United States and an acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, following Washington’s orders.
However, the arrival in Madrid has been less friendly than in her previous appointments. Machado will not meet with Pedro Sánchez despite the invitation to meet him extended by La Moncloa, and her reception at Madrid City Hall also faced opposition from the PSOE and Más Madrid, who described the recognition as “a private party of the mayor.” “It is a distinction reserved for heads of state on official visits. María Corina Machado is not the head of state of any country. If the PP wants to throw a private party, they should pay for it from Génova,” said Rita Maestre. “It’s adding insult to injury,” 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 USA. It is indecent and indefensible.”
Until now, the Golden Key of the city had been given to heads of state with two exceptions: the Crown Prince of Japan, Naruhito, in 2008, and in 2011, to the current King Charles of England, when he was still a prince.
In her speech, Machado 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, making her the reference figure among the opposition to Chavismo. The latest polls, from Bloomberg, which gives her a 53% positive rating, to Meganálisis, which raises that support to more than 70% in an electoral scenario, reflect her power inside and outside the country.
Machado stated on Wednesday about her refusal to meet with Sánchez that “there are times when certain meetings are not convenient,” she said in an interview on Cadena Cope. About her return to Venezuela, she said: “Venezuelans around the world are that force of nature that has taken our voice to the whole world before returning. As soon as we achieve those objectives, I will return to Venezuela to finish this phase of the struggle from within.”
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