Who Is María Corina Machado, This Year’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, María Corina Machado (58), is a Venezuelan opposition politician and industrial engineer who entered politics in 2002 as the founder of the election observation group Súmate. She served as a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly from 2011 to 2014 and is currently considered the leader of the opposition in the country.
She is a symbol of resistance against the regime of Nicolás Maduro and the founder of the Vente Venezuela movement. She is known for her relentless criticism of the authoritarian government and her calls to restore democracy in a country devastated by corruption, inflation, and political persecution — reports N1.
As stated in the award justification by the Nobel Committee, she has been a key, unifying figure of an opposition that was once deeply divided — “an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and a representative government.”
“This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even when we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground,” the Nobel Committee stated.
In 2018, she was included in the group of 100 BBC Women, and this year, Time magazine listed her among the 100 most influential people in the world.
Machado has spent the last year in hiding due to serious threats to her life, and the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has banned her from leaving the country.
On August 1, 2024, she published a letter in the Wall Street Journal stating that she would have to remain in hiding “in fear for my life, freedom, and the freedom of my fellow citizens from Maduro’s dictatorship.”
She was a candidate in the 2012 presidential elections but lost to Henrique Capriles.
During the 2014 protests in Venezuela, Machado was one of the leading figures organizing demonstrations against Nicolás Maduro’s government.
In January 2024, as the presidential elections approached, the Supreme Court of Venezuela — controlled by Maduro — disqualified her from politics for 15 years, preventing her from running as a candidate.
She was then replaced by Corina Yoris, who was prevented from registering as a candidate, and was temporarily substituted by Edmundo González Urrutia.
She has received numerous international awards, including the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (2024) and the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.
For many Venezuelans, María Corina Machado remains a symbol of courage, civil resistance, and hope that the country will, after years of authoritarian rule, once again find its path to freedom and political change.
