Venezuela’s Machado shuns Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will not be present to accept her Nobel Peace Prize award in Oslo, the capital of Norway, on Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

The Nobel Institute confirmed the development on Wednesday.

“She is not coming to the ceremony,” Nobel Institute spokesperson Erik Aasheim said ahead of the event due to start at 1:00 p.m. (1200 GMT).

Machado, 58, lives in hiding and it was not known ahead of the ceremony whether she had managed to leave Venezuela.

When she won the prize in October, Machado dedicated it in part to United States President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, says Trump is trying to overthrow him to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, adding that Venezuelan citizens and armed forces will resist any such attempt.

Venezuela’s Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize for fighting dictatorship

Machado was due to receive the award at a ceremony at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja and Latin American leaders including Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa.

“She is unfortunately not in Norway and will not stand on stage at Oslo City Hall at 1 p.m. when the ceremony starts,” the director of the institute and the permanent secretary of the award body, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told AFP.

Asked where she was, Harpviken said: “I don’t know.”

Although Machado will not reach Oslo, the ceremony will still go ahead.

When a laureate is unable to attend, a close family member usually steps in to receive the prize and deliver the Nobel lecture in place of the laureate.

In this case, it will be Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, Harpviken said.

The Star