Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize; Trump misses out
The Nobel Committee has announced Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner for promoting democratic rights in her country and her struggle to achieve a transition to democracy.
Machado, a 58-year-old industrial engineer who lives in hiding, was blocked in 2024 by Venezuela’s courts from running for president and thus challenging President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.
“She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela, and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the committee stated in the announcement.
“2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace, to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness,” the committee said of Machado’s win.
They added: “As the leader of the Democratic Forces in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America.
In recent times, Miss Machado has been a key unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided, an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free election and representative government.”
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” it said in its citation.
Last year, the European Union awarded its top human rights prize to Maria Corina Machado along with another Venezuelan opposition politician, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
The European Parliament said the winners of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought were “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.
The lead-up to this year’s award had been dominated by US President Donald Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The committee took its final decision before a ceasefire and hostage deal under the first phase of Trump’s initiative to end the war in Gaza was announced on Wednesday.
Ahead of the Nobel announcement, experts on the award had also said Trump was very unlikely to win as his policies were seen as dismantling the international world order the Nobel committee cherishes.