Venezuela’s Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize for fighting dictatorship

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting dictatorship in the country.

Machado, who lives in hiding, won the award on Friday, October 10, 2025, despite United States President Donald Trump’s repeated insistence he deserved it.

She is the first Venezuelan national to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the sixth from Latin America.

Machado, a 58-year-old industrial engineer, 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.

After being blocked from running in 2024, Machado threw herself into campaigning for her replacement, former ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez, drawing crowds that sometimes numbered in the thousands.

Several members of Machado’s inner circle have faced arrest, including her head of security at the time of the campaign, and six members of her team took refuge in Argentina’s embassy after prosecutors issued warrants for their arrest.

The secretary of the award body, Kristian Berg Harpviken, said he had spoken to Machado on the phone just before the announcement was made in Oslo.

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“She said it was overwhelming and that this was a prize for a whole movement, the movement in Venezuela that has fought for democracy,” Harpviken disclosed.

It was not immediately clear whether she would be able to attend the award ceremony in Oslo on December 10.

The lead-up to this year’s award was dominated by Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump is also a fierce critic of Maduro.

The award to Machado comes at a time when the United States has struck several vessels allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks.

Trump has also said the U.S. would look into attacking drug cartels “coming by land” in Venezuela, according to Reuters.

The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.2 million, is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards, in his 1895 will.

The Star