MADRID — Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado declined to meet Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and left-wing coalition government officials during her visit to Spain, instead holding a series of meetings with leaders from the People's Party and the Vox party. She said she chose not to meet Sanchez because he was hosting a summit of left-wing leaders from Latin America in Barcelona.

"What has transpired in the past few hours at the meeting held in Barcelona with various political leaders from different countries is proof that such a meeting was not advisable," Machado said. She was welcomed by Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, leader of the People's Party, and Venezuelan émigrés in Madrid on Friday.

On Saturday, she met Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Madrid regional leader, who presented Madrid's gold medal to her. Madrid's Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida handed the keys to the city to Machado before a rally. She also met Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, in Madrid.

Feijóo praised Machado's efforts to champion freedom, noting that she went into hiding in Venezuela away from her family. "Spain knows well the value of freedom; it cost us dearly to obtain it. The generations of our parents and grandparents know what it is to live without freedom. That is why we cannot look the other way," he said.

Machado, who has been nicknamed Venezuela's "Iron Lady," has said she admires Margaret Thatcher. She shifted from the right to the centre-ground during the 2024 presidential campaign and leads a Venezuelan opposition that is split and contains more liberal factions. In a 2024 interview with El Pais, she said she was against abortion but supported changing Venezuelan law to allow abortion in cases of rape. Venezuelan law allows abortion only when there is a risk to the life of the mother or child, and abortion in other circumstances carries a jail sentence of up to two years.

Machado initially supported Donald Trump but he later shunned her in favor of Delcy Rodriguez, the acting Venezuelan president. She is now closer to Marco Rubio, U.S. secretary of state, who supported her cause within the MAGA movement.

Carlos Malamud, an expert on Latin America at the Real Elcano Institute, a think tank in Madrid, commented on the visit. "Machado is the leader of a small, disorganised opposition, while Feijoo is the head of the PP, which is a well-organised national political party," he said. Malamud added: "Venezuelan politics is the same as Cuban politics, or like Spanish. They all suffer from the same degree of polarisation." He also said: "If Machado wants to be the president of Venezuela next year, she needs to be prepared to meet the head of the Spanish government, whoever that may be."

The Vox party was founded in 2013, and the People's Party experienced internal divisions following Vox's formation that year. José Rodríguez Zapatero has acted as a mediator between Spain and the government of former President Nicolás Maduro.