Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello issued a thinly veiled threat against opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, warning that authorities have a “surprise” prepared for her if she returns to the country during the upcoming Easter holiday.

Speaking Wednesday on his weekly television program Con el Mazo Dando — Hitting with the club — Cabello mocked reports that Machado may travel back to Venezuela during Holy Week and suggested that the government would be ready to respond.

“I’m not going to tell you what surprise I have prepared for her,” Cabello said in remarks widely interpreted by critics as a warning that Machado could face detention if she returns.

The comments came as Cabello read a letter from “La Sifrina,” a fictional character he uses on the program to present purported insider information about opposition figures.

According to Cabello, Machado’s political allies have been spreading rumors about her return during the Easter period, a move he ridiculed while implying that security authorities were aware of the plans.

The senior ruling party official also used the broadcast to attack Machado’s standing abroad, accusing her of damaging her own political alliances.

Cabello claimed the opposition leader had “drowned in her own inconsistency” after allegedly clashing with allies of U.S. President Donald Trump.

He also said Machado and members of her team were attempting to rebuild ties with figures linked to the Democratic Party in the United States in order to undermine relations between Caracas and Washington.

“Extremist opposition figures María Corina Machado, Magalli Meda and Pedro Urruchurtu are allied with the Democratic Party of the United States,” said Cabello, who also serves as secretary general of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

During the broadcast, Cabello referred to a now-deleted social media post by Machado adviser Magalli Meda that included a cartoon criticizing Trump after he appeared to ignore Machado during the State of the Union address.

“She posted the cartoon and then deleted it. Someone must have scolded her,” Cabello said. “Why did you delete it, Magalli? Those are the contradictions among them that they don’t explain to anyone.”

“She posted this because she felt very upset,” he added. “And I think you’re going to keep feeling upset.”

Cabello’s remarks came days after Machado reiterated her plans to return to Venezuela, describing the move as part of an effort to help guide the country through what she called an “unstoppable transition to democracy.”

In a video message released Sunday from the United States, Machado said her return would focus on forging a “broad national agreement” capable of guaranteeing governability and preparing the country for new elections.

“For all of this, I will return to Venezuela in a few weeks. I want to do so just as hundreds and thousands of Venezuelan exiles around the world wish to,” she said.

Machado left Venezuela last December to travel to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize medal after spending a year in hiding to avoid arrest amid an intensifying crackdown on opposition leaders. Authorities had issued a warrant for her detention.

Her planned return comes during a fragile political transition following the Jan. 3 capture of strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife, congresswoman Cilia Flores, during a U.S. operation that Washington described as the culmination of a prolonged investigation.

Machado portrayed the episode as a decisive turning point in Venezuela’s long political crisis.

“For years we said that this regime would only relinquish power when confronted with real force and a credible threat,” she said in the message. “First we had to defeat them spiritually, then politically, then electorally and finally militarily. We said it would happen — and it did.”

Under the rule of the Caracas Socialist regime, Venezuela experienced one of the world’s largest migration crises in recent years, with more than eight million people leaving the country amid economic collapse and political repression.

Machado announced her plans despite warnings from interim President Delcy Rodríguez that she could face legal consequences if she returns.

Rodríguez has brought up Machado’s support for international sanctions against Venezuela and for the U.S. operation that resulted in Maduro’s capture.

“With respect to her life, we do not understand why there is so much commotion,” Rodríguez said in remarks released ahead of a television interview last month. “As for her return to the country, she will have to answer before Venezuela.”

Rodríguez was referring to Machado’s support for international pressure against Maduro’s government — measures the opposition leader has long defended as necessary to confront what she describes as a repressive regime.

After Maduro’s capture, Trump publicly backed Rodríguez’s interim administration, saying it was operating with his government’s support while meeting Washington’s conditions, including opening Venezuela’s oil sector to international investment.

In her address Sunday, Machado accused officials who remain in positions of authority of trying to delay political change.

“They want to buy time so that nothing changes.”

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