Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

Oslo, Oct 10: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her steadfast commitment to democracy and her leadership in uniting Venezuela’s fragmented opposition against authoritarian governance.

Announcing the decision in Oslo, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, hailed Machado as a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government.”

Born in 1967, Machado has long been one of Venezuela’s most prominent voices for freedom, democracy, and human rights. A former presidential candidate and founder of the opposition party Vente Venezuela, she has faced intimidation, political persecution, and even periods in hiding. Despite these challenges, she has remained in Venezuela, continuing her activism and inspiring millions across the nation.

“She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society,” the Nobel Committee noted in its official citation.

The committee praised Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Her recognition this year highlights the Nobel Committee’s emphasis on the interdependence of democracy and peace.

“Democracy understood as the right to freely express one’s opinion, to cast one’s vote, and to be represented in elective government is the foundation of peace both within and between countries,” the committee said in its statement.

Machado’s award comes at a time when Venezuela continues to face deep political and economic crises, with the opposition battling to restore democratic governance under President Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors campaigning to uphold the global taboo against nuclear weapons.

The Peace Prize remains the only Nobel Award presented in Oslo, Norway, while the other prizes like medicine, physics, chemistry, and literature are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced on October 13.

With inputs from news agency