Venezuelan opposition leader and pro-democracy activist Maria Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless efforts to promote democratic rights and her courageous struggle for a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday in Oslo.
Announcing the award, Committee Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes described Machado as “a unifying figure in a nation that has become a brutal authoritarian state,” hailing her as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”
Machado, 58, who has been living in hiding for the past year, expressed shock at the announcement in a video shared by her press team. “I am in shock,” she said.
Despite threats to her life, Machado has chosen to remain in Venezuela — a decision the committee said has inspired millions. Social media reports suggest she may be taking refuge at the U.S. embassy, though this remains unconfirmed.
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, who represented Machado as a stand-in presidential candidate after her disqualification from the 2024 election, called the award “a well-deserved recognition of a woman and an entire people’s fight for freedom and democracy.”
Machado, an engineer from Caracas, rose to prominence in 2002 as co-founder of Sumate (Join Us), a civic movement that organized a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez, mentor of current leader Nicolás Maduro. Accused of treason at the time, she sent her three children abroad after receiving death threats.
Known for her signature white attire and rock-star reception at opposition rallies, Machado had been seen as the leading challenger to Maduro before her candidacy was blocked. She later endorsed González Urrutia, accompanying him on campaign tours across the country.
In recent years, Machado has received other major international honors, including the European Union’s Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Prize in 2024.
The Nobel Committee emphasized that Venezuela has deteriorated from a once democratic and prosperous nation into “a brutal authoritarian state suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis,” where the opposition faces “election rigging, prosecution, and imprisonment.” It described Machado as a “key, unifying figure” in a formerly fragmented opposition.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize includes a gold medal, a diploma, and a $1.2 million cash award, to be presented at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
