Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado portrait seen amongst photographs of earlier winners on the Nobel Peace Heart in Oslo on Dec. 9, 2025, on the eve of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.
Odd Andersen/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Odd Andersen/AFP by way of Getty Photos
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado plans to simply accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Wednesday. However the ceremony comes at a clumsy second as a result of Machado seems to have given up on utilizing peaceable means to dislodge Venezuela’s authoritarian regime.
Machado now claims that elections in Venezuela are a sham that may by no means result in the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro. She has additionally emerged as a full-throated supporter of President Trump’s gunboat diplomacy within the Caribbean Sea, together with his threats to take away Maduro by drive.
“Most people interpret the Nobel Peace Prize as (going to) someone who works through peaceful means, and that doesn’t fit her very well,” says David Smilde, a Venezuela skilled at Tulane College.
But Machado is a revered determine amongst throngs of Venezuelans, each contained in the nation and overseas, who’re determined for change after having watched Maduro crush their nation’s democracy and its financial system throughout his practically 13 years in energy.
“She is our Iron Lady,” says Ana María Ramos, a nutritionist who fled Venezuela 9 years in the past and now lives in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Machado, 58, is a right-wing politician who has spent twenty years opposing Venezuela’s more and more autocratic authorities. Whereas many opposition figures have fled the nation, she remained in Venezuela because the Maduro regime’s most charismatic and ferocious critic.
With polls suggesting that she would trounce Maduro within the July 2024 presidential election, his authorities banned her from operating. However as a substitute of giving up, she led a nationwide marketing campaign that satisfied thousands and thousands of Venezuelans to vote for a substitute candidate, retired diplomat Edmundo González. In keeping with voter tally sheets collected by the opposition, González beat Maduro by a greater than 2-to-1 margin.
Venezuelans in Bogotá, Colombia, rally for opposition chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado.
John Otis/for NPR
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John Otis/for NPR
“We played by the democratic rules and we won the election,” mentioned Daniel Navarro, a Venezuelan exile who helped set up a pro-Machado march forward of Wednesday’s Nobel ceremony. “We did our best to achieve power in a peaceful way.”
Nevertheless, Maduro refused to go away workplace and ordered a large crackdown on the opposition that prompted González to flee to Spain. From hiding inside Venezuela, Machado has continued to present interviews, rally her supporters and denounce the Maduro regime’s human rights abuses, press censorship, and the holding of political prisoners.
In October, she turned the primary Venezuelan to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize committee lauded “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Machado known as the prize “a recognition of all Venezuelans” of their battle for freedom and democracy.
However Smilde, of Tulane College, describes Machado as “a very controversial pick.”
He mentioned Machado has generally labored towards negotiations geared toward peacefully eradicating Maduro from workplace. Regardless of her key position in final yr’s presidential marketing campaign, she has typically known as on voters to boycott elections which allowed pro-regime politicians to occupy practically all authorities posts. In Could, she enraged many opposition politicians by calling them “traitors” for participating in Venezuela’s gubernatorial and legislative elections.
Machado helps ongoing U.S. navy strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats within the Caribbean Sea though they’ve killed dozens of Venezuelans. What’s extra, she’s been lobbying for American troops to assist take out Maduro.
When requested throughout an NPR interview the day after successful the Nobel if she supported utilizing American troops to revive democracy to Venezuela, she mentioned: “You cannot have peace without freedom, and you cannot have freedom without strength.”
However Machado’s push for U.S. navy intervention helps to solidify the Maduro regime as a result of he stokes nationalist sentiment by elevating the specter of overseas troops coming ashore on Venezuelan seashores, says Vladimir Villegas, a radio present host in Caracas.
“Venezuela has two extremes: Maduro and María Corina,” says opposition lawmaker Henrique Capriles who favors negotiations to finish the disaster. “Both are in an all-or-nothing fight.”
As U.S. warships collect within the Caribbean, Machado is claiming that the tip of the Maduro regime is imminent. However Smilde says counting on the U.S. may backfire for Machado if Trump decides towards navy motion. He factors out that Venezuela’s earlier opposition chief, Juan Guaidó, made related guarantees of regime change that by no means occurred. Guaidó’s recognition plummeted and he now lives in exile in Miami.
“When you consistently say ‘The end is near, Maduro is weaker than ever,” however there is no transition, ultimately folks assume both you might be mendacity otherwise you’re so incompetent you could’t make it occur,” Smilde said.
Yet Machado’s hardline approach rings true for many Venezuelans who claim that Maduro steals elections, uses military force to crush the democratic opposition, and only takes part in negotiations to buy time.
That’s why when asked about a possible U.S. invasion, Ana Karina García, a Venezuelan activist in Colombia, says: “We have no different possibility on this second in our nation. We have to recuperate liberty in Venezuela.”
It doesn’t matter what occurs, Machado’s work inside Venezuela could also be coming to an finish. The Nobel Institute confirms she’s going to take part in Wednesday’s ceremony, although a scheduled press convention in Oslo on Tuesday was postponed and her staff has offered no particulars on her arrival.
If Machado leaves Venezuela, it is unsure whether or not the regime there’ll let her return. Her household — together with the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay — are already in Oslo, whereas Machado’s personal whereabouts stay unknown.
