Venezuelan conservative opposition leader awarded Nobel peace prize

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel peace prize yesterday for her dogged struggle to rescue the South American country from its fate as "a brutal, authoritarian state".

- Tom Phillips

Machado, 58, a conservative often described as Venezuela's Iron Lady, has spent a year in hiding after her political movement was widely believed to have beaten the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, in the July 2024 presidential election.

Maduro refused to accept he had lost to the former diplomat Edmundo González and launched a ferocious political crackdown that forced González into exile and Machado to go underground.

In one of her last public appearances in Caracas, Machado said she was convinced Maduro's days in power were numbered after his apparently stinging defeat. "I would say his departure is irreversible," she told the Guardian.

More than a year later Maduro remains in power and, crucially, has retained the support of Venezuela's military and key international backers such as China and Russia. Donald Trump has ordered a major naval buildup off Venezuela's Caribbean coast in recent weeks, which some suspect could be a prelude to some kind of regime change operation.

Machado reacted to her Nobel prize in a video González posted on social media in which the pair celebrate the news. "I can't believe it!" an incredulous Machado tells her ally. "It's fucking incredible!" he replies.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute shared a video of the moment its director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, woke up Machado with the news. "Oh my God!" she said. "I have no words. But I hope you understand that I am just one person, I certainly don't deserve this."

"It caught her totally by surprise," said Pedro Mario Burelli, an opposition politician and friend of more than four decades. "She's very moved. She's very concerned about what impact this has on the last phase of the struggle."

"She's tearful," he added after speaking to Machado yesterday.

Writing on X, Machado dedicated the prize to "the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause."