2025 Nobel Peace Prize: who is Maria Corina Machado, awarded “for supporting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado for "her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the Venezuelan people and her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy"

Maria Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan opposition leader who last year had already received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most important human rights award, together with Edmundo González Urrutia. Today the Oslo Committee recognizes her as an “extraordinary example of civic courage in Latin America in recent times.”

This year there were 338 candidates and, although the complete list of names is closely guarded, United States President Donald Trump had made no secret of his desire to win the coveted prize.

But it was not to be, and although Machado is not entirely distant from that type of ideology (in interviews, Machado has described Trump’s foreign policy toward Venezuela as “an opportunity” to push for a democratic transition).

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Maria Corina Machado, the woman challenging the Venezuelan regime

In a country where democracy is now just a memory, Maria Corina Machado has become the face of civic courage. Leader of the democratic opposition in Venezuela, she is today one of the most emblematic figures in the peaceful struggle against the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro.

Machado has managed to unite a historically divided political front, leading a movement demanding free elections and representative government. A simple request, but revolutionary in a country where freedom of expression is stifled and repression is the order of the day.

Over the past twenty years, Venezuela has gone from being a prosperous and democratic nation to an authoritarian and impoverished state. Today, most citizens live in extreme poverty, while power remains concentrated in the hands of a few. The humanitarian crisis has forced nearly eight million people to flee, making it one of the largest migrations in recent history.

Founder of the organization Súmate, created to promote democratic participation, Machado immediately chose the path of the ballot box instead of violence. “It was a choice between ballots and bullets,” she once said. Since then, she has dedicated her life to defending human rights, judicial independence, and popular representation.

In 2024 she was the opposition’s most credible candidate for the presidency of Venezuela, but the regime blocked her candidacy, preventing her from participating in the elections. However, Machado continued the battle by supporting another candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, and mobilizing hundreds of thousands of volunteers who monitored polling stations to prevent fraud and destruction of votes.

The election results, made public thanks to independent counts, showed the opposition’s victory. But the regime refused to recognize them, maintaining power by force. Her commitment is now recognized internationally.

A complex figure

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which throughout history has awarded those who peacefully opposed repression, sees in Maria Corina Machado a figure who embodies the ideals of peace, democracy and freedom. But there are many concerns.

Founder of the Vente Venezuela party in 2012, Maria Corina Machado is a complex and controversial figure in Venezuelan politics. At home she is known as the leader of the democratic opposition to Nicolás Maduro’s regime, but also as the most determined face of the country’s liberal and anti-communist right.

For years she has denounced the interference of Russia, China, Iran and Cuba in Venezuelan affairs, accusing the Chavista government of having transformed Venezuela into an authoritarian and corrupt state. Her line has always been clear: no negotiation with the regime, but a clean transition to democracy and market economy. And this very positioning has attracted as much criticism as consensus. Close to conservative positions and sometimes in tune with Donald Trump’s foreign policy, Machado represents the most intransigent part of the Venezuelan opposition: a woman who has chosen to challenge the power of Chavismo with the force of words and dissent. But also, it must be said, with a strongly free-market and pro-Western political vision.