Nobel Peace Prize winner: Who is Maria Machado?

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday is a 58-year-old industrial engineer who lives in hiding.

- Agencies

She 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. “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation.

Venezuela has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a “brutal authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis”, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

“The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country's own citizens. Nearly eight million people have left the country,” he said,

The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means of “election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment”. In this context, Machado has been a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided”.