Machado's Venezuela return opens strong; critics dread act two
Assessors praised the Nobel laureate's welcome in Venezuela but held back top marks over a plot they have seen before.
The International Registry of Exile Returns has classed María Corina Machado's homecoming to Venezuela as a Grade Nine Return. That is the second-highest mark it awards, one notch below a return that ends in a coronation.
The opposition leader left the country almost a year ago to collect the Nobel peace prize. At lunchtime she announced on X that she was back, in four words: "I'm here. With you." The Registry's panel met within the hour.
Its assessors score every return against nine criteria. These include crowd volume, tarmac weeping, the brevity of the first statement and the visible displeasure of whoever currently holds the palace. On that last point, the return was reported to be unlikely to please the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez. The Registry counts that as a pass.
"Four words is very strong," said Dr Henrietta Vosk, the Registry's chief assessor. "Napoleon used far more and only got a hundred days out of it."
The crowd also scored well. Coverage described the reception as rapturous. The Registry's manual places that above "jubilant" and just below "nobody could find the luggage carousel".
So why not a Ten? The top grade is kept for returns with a clear second act, and here the panel hesitated. "Exile, prize, homecoming, crowd," Dr Vosk said. "It is a superb opening. Our concern is that this franchise has almost never stuck the ending."
The archive makes for grim reading. One assessor kept a folder marked 1917 open throughout the deliberations, and nobody asked him to close it.
Another raised the name Juan Perón. He then put down his pen and looked out of the window for some time.
Not everyone accepts the grade. Tobias Mere, of the rival Lisbon Homecoming Council, called it generous. "A Nobel laureate flying home to a government that would rather she hadn't is not a return," he said. "It is a dare. We grade dares on a separate scale, and the scale only has two marks."
Your correspondent has covered a few of these. The first night is always magnificent: the flags, the tears, the airport staff pretending not to film it. Then the crowds go home, the cameras leave, and the palace stays precisely where it was. The second act is never written by the person who got off the plane. It is written by whoever owns the police, the courts and the electricity.
The Registry will reconvene on Thursday to grade the sequel. It has already booked the smaller room.
