Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight against the country's dictatorship, and she partially dedicated the award to United States President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed that he deserves the award.
Machado, 58, said her award was "a huge recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans" and said she was counting on the support of the US president.
"I dedicate this award to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump, for his resolute support for our cause," Machado wrote in a post on social media.
"We are on the threshold of victory, and today more than ever we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the people of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies in achieving freedom and democracy," she added.
The conservative, who lives underground and is often called the "Iron Lady of Venezuela," has spent the past year in hiding after her political movement was widely believed to have defeated the country's President Nicolas Maduro in the July 2024 presidential election.
Maduro refused to admit defeat to Machado's ally, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, and launched a fierce political repression that forced Gonzalez into exile and Machado into a life of illegality.
More than a year later, Maduro remains in power and, crucially, retains the support of the military and major international allies, such as China and Russia. Trump has in recent weeks ordered a significant buildup of naval presence off Venezuela's Caribbean coast, which some believe could be a prelude to some kind of regime change operation.
"Thank you very much, but I hope you understand that this is a movement, that this is an achievement of an entire society. I am just one person. I certainly do not deserve this award," Machado told the secretary of the award committee, Christian Berg Harpviken, in a telephone conversation that the Nobel committee published on social media.
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee's statement on the occasion of the awarding of the prize states that "when autocrats seize power, it is crucial to recognize the courageous defenders of freedom who stand up and resist."
By selecting Machado as this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the Nobel Committee has sent a clear message of concern about the state of democracy in the world, Karim Hagag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told CNN.
"The Nobel Committee has clearly decided to highlight democracy as a priority area, emphasizing that this prize comes at a time of global decline in democratic values and norms," Hagag said.
Machado, known to many Venezuelans simply as MCM or Maria Corina, has been involved in politics for more than two decades and was a member of Venezuela's National Assembly from 2011 to 2014. However, it was during her tours of the economically devastated country ahead of the 2024 elections that she solidified her reputation as the most effective and influential opponent of Chavismo. Her rallies drew huge, enthusiastic crowds, and many supporters expressed an almost religious devotion to the charismatic Catholic politician, writes the British "Guardian".
Machado originally planned to run for president, but the Venezuelan Supreme Court, loyal to the regime, banned her from doing so, so she was replaced by Gonzalez, a little-known former ambassador.
However, despite widespread popular support, Machado is not universally beloved.
Some Venezuelans distrust her because of her previous, veiled calls for foreign military intervention to oust Maduro. She argued in 2019 that only a “real, credible, serious and imminent threat” of international force could persuade Maduro to leave power.
Others are suspicious because of her ties to politicians like Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Machado is the first Venezuelan to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the sixth laureate from Latin America.
The United Nations Human Rights Office welcomed the award of the Machado Prize as recognition of "the clear aspirations of the Venezuelan people for free and fair elections."
The chairman of the award committee, Jurgen Vatne Fridnes, said he hoped the prize would encourage the work of the Venezuelan opposition. “We hope that the entire opposition will gain new momentum to continue the fight for a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” Fridnes told Reuters after the award was announced.
The award, as Human Rights Watch's Americas director, Juanita Gobertus Estrada, said, could also strengthen international pressure on the Maduro administration.
This year's awards ceremony was marked by an aggressive campaign by Donald Trump, who is also a fierce critic of Maduro, to claim that he deserves the award.
“I think the main takeaway is that the committee is once again showing its independence, not allowing itself to be swayed by popular opinion or political leaders in awarding the prize,” Halvard Leira, research director at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, told Reuters. “The democratic opposition in Venezuela has long been something the United States has wanted to support. So in that sense, it would be difficult for anyone to see this as an insult to Trump.”
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish kronor, or about $1,2 million, will be awarded in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who established the prizes in his 1895 will.
It is not immediately clear whether Machado will be able to attend the award ceremony.
If he does not attend, he will join the list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates who have been prevented from doing so in the award's 124-year history, including Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov (1975), Pole Lech Walesa (1983) and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi (1991).
White House: Politics before peace
The White House criticized the decision, just days after Trump announced a breakthrough in talks to end the fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
“President Trump will continue to make peace agreements, end wars, and save lives... The Nobel Committee has proven that it puts politics before peace,” White House spokesman Stephen Cheung said in a post on the X network.
Friednes, the chairman of the Nobel committee, declined to say what would be required for Trump or anyone else in the future to win the prize, namely whether efforts to end the conflict in Gaza could lead to recognition in 2026.
“If he is nominated, he will be considered, but time will tell,” Fridnes said.
“Our job is not to tell other people or countries what to do - our job is to award the Nobel Peace Prize... So, we'll see next year.”
The committee made its final decision before the announcement on Wednesday of a ceasefire and hostage release agreement as part of the first phase of Trump's initiative to end the war in Gaza.
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