https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/10/maria-machado-nobel-peace-prize-venezuela/María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader, wins Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Prize committee recognized María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader in hiding, for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
Updated
October 10, 2025 at 6:32 a.m. EDTtoday at 6:32 a.m. EDT
Opposition leader María Corina Machado at a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, on Aug. 28, 2024. (Ariana Cubillos/AP)
By Steve Hendrix
and
Samantha Schmidt
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded its 2025 Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has become a symbol of democratic resistance against an increasingly authoritarian regime, even as she has been forced into hiding and barred from holding public office.
The decision, announced in Oslo’s grand City Hall, elevates Machado, known as Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” from a besieged political figure in her own country to the world stage, joining the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and other laureates who have challenged autocratic rule.
Machado’s location remains undisclosed for security reasons, though supporters say she remains in Venezuela despite arrest warrants and government accusations that she has conspired to destabilize the country.
Advertisement
Advertisement
“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace — to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” the committee said, announcing the award.
🌎
Machado reacted with shock when reached by a representative of the Nobel committee a few minutes before her win was announced. “Oh my God … I have no words,” she said according to a video of the call posted on X by the committee.
The prize was awarded as the Trump administration — a vocal supporter of Machado — has sharply escalated military tensions with Venezuela, attacking at least four boats in the Caribbean, which President Donald Trump has said were carrying drug smugglers in international waters.
The White House, which had been calling for Trump to win the prize, did not immediately congratulate Machado but a spokesman, Steven Cheung, questioned the committee’s motives. “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives,” Cheung said, adding: “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
Trump has previously described Machado as a “freedom fighter.” He has also declared the United States to be in “armed conflict” with drug cartels that are distributing narcotics in the U.S., according to a notification to Capitol Hill that seeks to give legal cover for taking lethal action against traffickers following the military strikes.
Advertisement
The administration has not provided evidence that narcotics were aboard, and the strikes prompted Venezuela to request an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
Machado, a fierce and longtime foe of Venezuela’s autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro, swept the primaries ahead of the Venezuelan presidential election in 2024 with more than 92 percent of the vote.
Despite a U.S.-brokered deal for competitive elections in Venezuela, Maduro blocked her from running. Still, in the months leading up to the vote, Machado rallied large crowds across the country to motivate Venezuelans to vote for a stand-in for her, Edmundo González, even as the Maduro government repeatedly harassed and arrested her aides and anyone associated with her campaign.
On July 28, 2024, Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly in favor of González, according to a Washington Post review of more than 23,000 precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition and the conclusion of other independent monitors.
Maduro claimed victory in the election and refused to release the precinct-level results. In a remarkable logistical feat led by Machado and her team, the opposition managed to prove their own win — collecting the original receipts from more than 80 percent of voting machines nationwide with the help of thousands of regular Venezuelans stationed at polling sites.
Advertisement
Advertisement
After leaving one chaotic rally shortly before Maduro’s swearing-in, Machado was knocked from her motorcycle and briefly detained by pro-government forces, her campaign said.
In more than a year since that historic vote, Machado has remained in hiding in Venezuela as the driving force of the opposition. The Maduro government has continued to arrest and jail scores of dissidents and her close allies. Machado herself was briefly detained in January as she left a rally in Caracas, a day before Maduro took office for a third term.
An industrial engineer and daughter of a prominent steel businessman whose company was expropriated by then-President Hugo Chávez, Machado is a staunch conservative. She rose to national recognition as a fierce critic of Chávez and once famously challenged him during his annual address to the assembly in 2012, telling him “expropriating is robbing.” Chávez responded dismissively: “Águila no caza mosca” — “the eagle doesn’t hunt the fly.”
María Corina Machado poses for pictures with supporters in Guanare, Venezuela, on July 17, 2024. (Andrea Hernández Briceño/For The Washington Post)
“Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace. However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence,” the Nobel citation stated. “The Venezuelan regime’s rigid hold on power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarization. In 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.”
Advertisement
The committee made its selection against an unusual backdrop: President Trump’s increasingly public campaign to claim the prize for himself, an ambition that in recent days appeared to influence diplomacy in the Middle East. Trump has spoken openly about his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize but also expressed skepticism that the committee would recognize him.
“No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do — including Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in June. Trump has cited his role in settling numerous conflicts, at times exaggerating his role or the extent of peace, but in any event has spoken out frequently about his desire to save lives.
Trump’s ambition became a factor in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations that culminated in an agreement reached two days before the peace prize announcement, officials in the region and Washington said.
Machado with supporters in Guanare, Venezuela, on July 17, 2024. (Andrea Hernández Briceño/for The Washington Post)
Several world leaders said they had nominated Trump for the prize. The committee, however, said none had affected its deliberations.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the body is accustomed to lobbying campaigns — both organized and grassroots, political and heartfelt — but that it returns to the prize’s founding principles in making its choice.
Advertisement
Advertisement
“This committee sits in a room filled with portraits of our laureates,” Frydnes said Friday addressing the Trump effort. “That room is filled with both courage and integrity. We base our decision only on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”
The timing alone made Trump an unlikely candidate for the Gaza ceasefire deal. The Nobel Committee’s nomination deadline was January 31. When this year’s prize was announced, the Gaza agreement was just hours into being implemented and it was far from clear whether its terms would hold even in the short term.
Still, Nobel observers say that if the ceasefire evolves into a lasting peace framework, Trump would be a contender for the 2026 prize. The committee has frequently recognized Middle East peacemakers, from Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in 1978 to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat in 1994. A durable resolution to the Gaza conflict would rank among the most significant diplomatic achievements in recent decades.
Machado on a truck at a rally in Caracas on Aug. 17, 2024. (Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images)
In its announcement, the committee struck a pointed tone about the global state of democracy, declaring that Machado’s courage mattered especially “in a world where democracy is in retreat.”
That phrase — and the choice itself — will be seen by some as calibrated to send a message not just to Caracas, but to Washington and capitals worldwide where democratic norms have come under strain.
Advertisement
It may also be interpreted as an implicit rebuke to Trump, whose attacks on democratic institutions have alarmed democracy advocates.
Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, and his Justice Department’s prosecutions of political opponents have drawn comparisons, however imperfect, to the autocratic playbook Machado opposes.
Hendrix reported from London and Schmidt from Bogotá, Colombia.
Most read World
