Venezuelan Opposition Leader Wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
HAVANA TIMES – Maria Corina Machado, leader of Venezuela’s opposition and currently in hiding, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize this Friday, October 10, for “keeping the flame of democracy alive amid growing darkness” in her country.
The committee that grants the award recognized Machado for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights” and “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in Venezuela, governed continuously since 2013 by President Nicolas Maduro.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said during the announcement: “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize the brave defenders of freedom who rise up and resist.”
The choice of the Venezuelan leader distanced this year’s Nobel from conflicts dominating much of the global agenda—such as those in Ukraine and Gaza—and dashed the openly expressed hopes of US President Donald Trump to receive the prize.
The committee released a video showing its secretary calling Machado to inform her of the impending announcement. In the clip, recorded in the early hours of Friday in Caracas, the leader can be heard saying, “My God, I’m in shock, I can’t believe it, I have no words,” before expressing gratitude for the honor and the call.
Machado, a 58-year-old industrial engineer, liberal in outlook and head of her political movement Vente Venezuela, has two children. She overwhelmingly won the opposition primaries in 2023, but authorities disqualified her from running in the July 28, 2024, presidential election.
The opposition then chose retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez—now exiled in Spain—as its candidate. Machado launched an intense campaign on his behalf, drawing huge, passionate crowds throughout the country.
According to opposition tallies with copies of official voting precinct tally sheets, Gonzalez won the election with 67% of the vote compared to 30% for Maduro. However, the electoral council declared Maduro the victor with 53% of the votes, without ever publishing detailed results from the 335 municipalities and 30,000 polling stations.
On July 29, 2024, street protests broke out and were swiftly and violently repressed, leaving 27 dead, dozens injured, and over 2,200 demonstrators imprisoned within weeks.
There are still 841 political prisoners in Venezuela—including 103 women and four minors, according to the human rights group Foro Penal—among them political, labor, and civil society activists, as well as journalists.
In its presentation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee—the Peace Prize being the only one awarded in Norway, the rest in Sweden—emphasized that Venezuela “has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous nation into a brutal, authoritarian state now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis.”
“The majority of Venezuelans live in extreme poverty while a small elite grows rich. The state’s violent machinery targets its own citizens. Nearly eight million people have fled the country,” the committee stated.
It added that “the opposition has been systematically repressed through electoral fraud, legal persecution, and imprisonment, and the authoritarian regime makes political work extraordinarily difficult.”
The committee noted that throughout 20 years of civic and political work, Machado “has defended judicial independence, human rights, and popular representation.”
After the democratic setback of July 2024, Machado went underground. From hiding, she initially called for protests, and as repression intensified, she resorted to online messages and interviews, declaring that “Maduro’s regime is in its terminal phase.”
The Venezuelan government has accused her of organizing and promoting terrorist activities to destabilize the country, as well as encouraging an armed attack or even an invasion by the United States.
Since August, a US naval and air force task group has been deployed in the Caribbean, off Venezuela’s coast, with a dozen warships and several F-35 fighter jets. It has sunk four boats allegedly carrying drugs to the US, killing about 20 people aboard.
Washington considers Maduro an illegitimate president, accuses him of leading drug-trafficking cartels, and offers a $50 million reward for his capture.
Although Machado has consistently advocated peaceful options for her country and her supporters, she has refrained from criticizing Trump’s government, including its new military actions in the Caribbean.
A liberal thinker, Machado has proposed an economic recovery agenda centered on privatizing the oil industry, opening the economy to foreign investment, and politically aligning Venezuela firmly with the West while opposing regimes such as those of Cuba and Nicaragua.
Political leaders of similar persuasion across the Americas and Europe expressed congratulations and satisfaction over the prize awarded to Machado. Several hours after the announcement in Oslo, there had been no official reaction from the Venezuelan government.
First published by IPS in Spanish and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.