MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

María Corina Machado arrives in Chile for Kast’s inauguration and meeting with Venezuelan migrants

Beyond attending the inauguration, Machado has called Venezuelans in Chile to a Thursday afternoon gathering at Paseo Bulnes in downtown Santiago

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has arrived in Chile to attend Wednesday’s ceremony in which Gabriel Boric will hand over the presidency to José Antonio Kast, in a visit that also includes an event with Venezuelan residents in Santiago and several public appearances in the capital. She is among the international guests invited to the transfer of power, where Kast will formally take office at Congress in Valparaíso.

The trip carries added political weight because it will be one of Machado’s first public appearances in Latin America since leaving Venezuela last year and since receiving the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuela’s opposition said her Chile agenda covers March 11 and 12, while the Norwegian Nobel Committee lists her as the 2025 laureate for her work in favour of a democratic transition in Venezuela.

Beyond attending the inauguration, Machado has called Venezuelans in Chile to a Thursday afternoon gathering at Paseo Bulnes in downtown Santiago. Chilean media also reported that she is due to take part in the launch of the Sebastián Piñera Chair at Universidad del Desarrollo and to receive an official honour from Santiago’s city government.

In interviews published in Chile ahead of the trip, Machado praised Kast and linked her visit to Venezuela’s crisis and its regional consequences. “President Kast understands very well the nature of the regime that exists in Venezuela and the damage it has done not only to Venezuelans but to the whole region,” she said in remarks reproduced by her party and Chilean media. In another interview, she said she felt “great appreciation” for the president-elect, who, she added, had insisted on inviting her as a special guest.

The visit comes at a particularly sensitive moment for Chile, which hosts the country’s largest Venezuelan foreign community. Official figures released by Chile’s statistics agency and migration service showed Venezuelans were the largest foreign resident group in Chile, with more than 728,000 people estimated at the end of 2023. That demographic weight has made Venezuelan migration a central issue in Chilean politics, especially in debates over security and border control.

Machado also arrives with the Ronald Ojeda case still present in the bilateral agenda. Chilean prosecutors and the foreign ministry linked the kidnapping and murder of the former Venezuelan lieutenant in Santiago to a Tren de Aragua cell allegedly acting on a political order. Last week, La Tercera reported that Chilean prosecutors asked the United States to question Nicolás Maduro in New York as part of that investigation.

Machado has avoided publicly speculating about that request, but said those who held power in Caracas “have much to contribute” to the investigation, according to comments carried by the Chilean press. Her visit to Santiago will therefore combine a political gesture toward Chile’s incoming government with an effort to strengthen ties with one of the largest Venezuelan diasporas in the region.