The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado who lives in hiding after attempting to run against President Nicolás Maduro.
Machado, 58, was recognized for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness” and “ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela.”
Despite speculation that President Donald Trump might win the prize for his role helping broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, among other things, Machado emerged as a late favorite in online betting platforms hours before the decision came.
As leader of the Vente Venezuela opposition party, Machado is currently in hiding and faces “serious threats against her life” having been blocked from running for president and expelled from office, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told a news conference in Oslo.
“Oh, my God! I have no words,” she kept repeating when given the news over the telephone by Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, who could be seen in a video of the call becoming visibly emotional as he spoke.
“I hope you understand that this is a movement; this is the achievement of a whole society. I’m just one person. I certainly do not deserve this,” she said, learning of her accolade just minutes before it was made public. “I’m honored, humbled and very grateful and behalf of the Venezuelan people. We’re not there yet. We are working very hard to achieve it and I’m certain we will prevail.”
With nicknames such as “the Lady of Steel” and “the Iron Lady,” she has been among the most high profile victims of Maduro’s intensifying crackdown against opposition figures, journalists and civil society during his increasingly repressive rule.
Born in 1967 in Caracas, she studied engineering and finance, and had a short career in business before founding the Atenea Foundation in 1992, which supported street children in the capital. She was elected to the country’s National Assembly in 2010, only to be expelled four years later on allegations her supporters said were trumped up.
She would have been the main opposition candidate challenging the president during the election of 2024, but was barred because of the allegations widely condemned by the United States, the European Union and others as politically fabricated.
The candidate she supported instead, Edmundo González, was widely recognized internationally as the winner of the vote. But Maduro claimed victory anyway, responding to demonstrations with “widespread human rights violations against protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics,” according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
González posted his own video of himself calling and congratulating Machado, alongside a statement saying it was a “very well-deserved recognition for the long fight of a woman and of a whole people for our freedom and democracy.”
In August 2024, in the aftermath of that election, she went into hiding, saying she feared for her life under Maduro’s regime.
“The efforts of the collective opposition, both before and during the election, were innovative and brave, peaceful and democratic,” Frydnes said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was awarding Machado the Peace Prize not just for her efforts in her own country, but also her role as a talisman for the embattled principle of democracy worldwide. Watchdogs have for years been charting that decline in what Sweden’s V-Dem Institute called “a truly global wave of autocratization” in this year’s annual report.
Frydnes lamented this “world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence.” He said Venezuela’s “rigid hold on power and its repression of its population are not unique in the world.”
He went on to detail the global erosion in the rule of law, silencing of free media, government critics imprisoned and societies moving toward militarization.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” Frydnes added. Democracy “depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted.”
The award means that Trump, one of the other favorites in the weeks before, did not get the accolade he has so craved for years.
The Nobel Committee’s concerns about declining democracy are relevant as anywhere in Trump’s America, according to scholars.
“With the current developments in the USA under the Trump administration, even that country’s democracy seems to be in jeopardy,” said the V-Dem Institute, a world-respected arbiter of these freedoms, with Trump’s threats “to prosecute his rivals, punish critical media, and deploy the army to repress protests.”
Asked Friday about how the committee dealt with the campaigning and speculation around Trump’s nomination for the prize, the chairman said members were unmoved.
In the 124 year-history of the Peace Prize, he said, “this committee has seen every type of campaign and media attention, and we receive thousands and thousands of letters every year.”
But the decision is made “in a room filled with the portraits of all [previous] laureates,” and “filled with both courage and integrity. So how we base our decision only on the work, and the will of Alfred Nobel,” he said, referencing the scientist and businessman who founded the prize in 1901.
