Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on Jan. 9, 2025. (Credit: AFP)
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, known as “the liberator,” who is now forced to live in hiding in her country, which she calls a “brutal authoritarian state.”
“I’m in shock!” the 58-year-old laureate said in a video sent by her press team to AFP. “What is this? I can’t believe it,” she added.
Maria Corina Machado “is one of the most extraordinary examples of civic courage in Latin America in recent times,” said Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes. She “has been a key figure in uniting a once deeply divided political opposition — one that has found common ground in the call for free elections and representative government,” he said.
Machado entered politics in the early 2000s as an activist calling for a referendum against Hugo Chavez. A mother of three, she has made the fall of the Chavista regime her life’s mission. Despite her broad popularity, she was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election, in which incumbent Nicolas Maduro — Chavez’s political heir — was declared the winner despite widespread opposition protests.
The European Union, the United States and several other countries said Maduro, in power since 2013, stole the election and recognized Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia — whom Machado backed — as the legitimate winner. Now exiled in Spain, Gonzalez Urrutia called the award “well-deserved,” while the United Nations said the Nobel reflected Venezuelans’ aspirations for “free and fair” elections.
“Venezuela has gone from being a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal authoritarian state mired in humanitarian and economic crisis,” Frydnes said. “The state’s repressive machinery is now aimed at its own people. Nearly eight million have fled the country. The opposition has been systematically silenced through electoral fraud, legal persecution and imprisonment,” he noted.
Though she has earned the nickname “la libertadora” — “the liberator” — Machado is now forced to live underground in Venezuela, a country she has refused to abandon.
No Nobel for Trump
The prize eluded U.S. President Donald Trump, who had made no secret of his desire to win it this year. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly said he “deserves” the Nobel, claiming credit for ending eight wars, including the one in Gaza — a claim observers widely dispute.
“Donald Trump hates Maduro,” said Asle Sveen, a Nobel Prize historian, in comments to AFP. “He’s bombing fishing boats suspected of carrying narcotics. He’ll have a hard time making a case for this prize,” he added. So far, the Trump administration has struck at least four vessels at sea, which it claimed belonged to drug traffickers, leaving at least 21 people dead.
Maduro denounced the attacks as “armed aggression,” accusing Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext “to impose regime change” and seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves — among the largest in the world.
Machado previously received the 2024 Sakharov Prize, the European Union’s highest human rights honor, and the Vaclav Havel Prize, awarded by the Council of Europe. In the Nobel gallery, she succeeds Nihon Hidankyo, a group of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors campaigning against nuclear weapons.
The Nobel Peace Prize includes a diploma, a gold medal and a check worth 11 million Swedish kronor, or nearly 1 million euros.
