María Corina Machado has “an almost supernatural enthusiasm and resilience.” And now it’s Nobel Peace Prize
She disappeared from public view months ago, persecuted by the regime she has been trying to overthrow for decades. He lives on the run, changing hiding places like someone changing clothes, with his eyes always attentive to a country that no longer sleeps. “María Corina was violently intercepted as she left the demonstration in Chacao. Regime forces shot at the motorcycles that were transporting her”, the Venezuela Command on January 9, when the opposition decided, once again, to take to the streets. Since then, silence.
This Friday, that silence turned into praise for what she did: in Oslo, the Nobel Committee decided to reward “civil courage and the fight for democracy in Venezuela” of the woman who has challenged one of the most repressive regimes in Latin America for more than 20 years.
BREAKING NEWS
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2025 to Maria Corina Machado for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to…– The Nobel Prize (@nobelprze)
María Corina Machado, 58 years old, is a Yale-educated engineer, mother of three children, convinced liberal and declared enemy of Chavism. She who, more than a decade ago, dared to look Hugo Chávez in the eye inside the National Assembly and tell him what no other deputy had dared.
“President, we have been listening to you for eight hours talking about a country very far from the one that all Venezuelan women and mothers are experiencing. We have reached the height of hearing that there is an increase in milk production, when you know that, currently, there are women, mothers, who go to grocery stores, supermarkets and physically fight for a liter of milk because they have nothing to take home. This is the time to give an answer to the country, to the more than 180 a thousand mothers and women who, in these 13 years, lost their children, their husbands, their fathers and for whom justice was not served. This is what we wanted to hear, a decent Venezuela, and one that does not want to move towards communism at all, wants respect for property. We want a Venezuela of solidarity, a Venezuela of justice, a Venezuela of resilience. How can you say that you respect the private sector in Venezuela when you have dedicated yourself to to expropriate – which is to steal – steal the property of businessmen, traders, even small businesses that have not even been compensated for their property. Tell Venezuela the truth. Here there is a decent Venezuela, which wants a profound transformation. It is time to seriously and responsibly face this historic challenge that lies ahead. That time is over, it’s time for a new Venezuela.”
In 2023, María Corina Machado won the opposition’s primary elections, with 93% of the votes, but was prevented from running in the 2024 presidential elections. Even though she was disqualified, she pushed another candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, to an electoral victory that was never recognized.
“She was one of the candidates in Venezuela’s presidential elections last year – in fact she was a quasi-candidate because she was prevented from running”, recalls Carmen Fonseca, professor and researcher in Foreign Policy at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. “Edmundo González ended up launching, they toured the country together and the opposition won, but the victory was stolen from them. The courts never delivered the minutes and the results were manipulated by the government of Nicolás Maduro.”
It was this “stolen victory” that precipitated the new phase of María Corina’s life: that of invisibility. Since then, not even his allies know where he is, keeping in touch only by phone call. “At the time of the elections, no one knew where he was. He recorded messages from unknown locations and then disappeared. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether he will receive the award in person.”
But it is this physical absence but also palpable absence that, in Carmen Fonseca’s opinion, reinforces the symbolism of the Nobel Prize. María Corina Machado is, at this moment, more than a political leader: she is a “myth of resistance”.
MEP Sebastião Bugalho met her in 2024, when he traveled to Venezuela. Later, he was one of the main promoters of María Corina Machado’s candidacy for the Sakharov Prize. The European Parliament would even end up awarding the prize to the leader of the Venezuelan opposition in a consensus formed between Roberta Metsola and the leaders of the main political parties.
“His enthusiasm and resilience are almost supernatural. When we wrote, negotiated and approved the European Parliament resolution that recognized the electoral victory of his democratic movement, he was the first to call, to say ‘thank you’, to say ‘don’t give up’, ‘don’t forget us'”, recalls Sebastião Bugalho, speaking to CNN Portugal.
“The most overwhelming electoral phenomenon since Chávez”
The image is familiar: he is dressed mainly in white, a cross on his chest, the motto “Hasta el final” on his back. She crosses the country in improvised caravans, protected by motorcyclists who announce her as a head of state on a campaign. And, in the streets, they shout his name as if shouting a promise.
“She is an extremely courageous woman”, considers Raquel Patrício, professor at the Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP) at the University of Lisbon. “An activist against the Venezuelan regime of extreme caliber. The award is very well awarded because it draws attention to the atrocities that the Maduro regime has been committing – not only against the opposition, but against the citizens themselves.”
It was this courage that led her to found, in 2002, the organization Súmate, an electoral inspection movement that deeply angered Chavismo. Three years later, she was received at the White House by George W. Bush, a gesture that marked her as an “enemy of the regime”. Since then, everything has been an escalation: attacks, defamation, censorship, arrest warrants, until the 15-year disqualification that prevented her from running for president.
But neither prohibition, fear nor weapons were able to stop what was “the most overwhelming electoral phenomenon in Venezuela since Chávez in 1998”.
In a single word: “trash”
In 2023, María Corina Machado swept the traditional opposition in the primary elections. “It’s not the end, it’s the beginning of the end”, she said at the time, emotional, upon learning that she had basically won nine out of every ten votes.
His “Let’s go Venezuela” movement seemed unstoppable. In the streets, crowds waited for her with flowers, flags and notes scrawled with supplications. To , she confessed that there was one of these notes, coming from the hands of a minor, that marked her especially: it said “María Corina, I want to hug my father again.”
His promise was simple and powerful. He wanted to bring back to the country the 7.7 million Venezuelans who “fled during the years of economic and political upheaval.” “This regime has already been defeated. Our children will return to Venezuela”, he promised. But the Venezuelan Supreme Court tried to halt the candidate’s meteoric rise. He disqualified her for “acts against public morals and sovereignty”, accusing her of having supported international sanctions and collaborated with the self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó, in addition to combining the mandate of deputy with that of “alternative representative of the delegation of the Republic of Panama to the Organization of American States”.
At the time, María Corina Machado responded with a single word: “trash”.
From then on, the regime closed the siege. Edmundo González Urrutia was launched as a replacement candidate, won the elections, but was forced into exile in Spain. María Corina Machado, in turn, disappeared.
“The award of the Nobel Prize is very relevant because it reinforces the idea that fighting for democracy is also fighting for peace. And it brings back the international gaze to Venezuela, where there is a humanitarian crisis that the world insists on forgetting”, says Carmen Fonseca.
“Don’t worry, my love”
Daughter of one of the most powerful businessmen in the country, María Corina grew up in the heart of Caracas’ elite. He studied Industrial Engineering, graduated from Yale and could have followed a peaceful life – but he chose combat. From an early age she was nicknamed the “Iron Lady”, both for her privileged origins and her determination reminiscent of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
While the world waits to see if she will appear in Oslo or if the award will be received in her name, what remains is the echo of her voice and the symbol she has become for millions of Venezuelans.
“Don’t worry, my love. It’s now”, one day to one of his children, who left him a drawing with the phrase “The sun will shine tomorrow”. For Sebastião Bugalho, perhaps this “now” has finally arrived.
“This is a victory for all Venezuelan democrats, those who resist and those who were forced to leave their country, from political prisoners to those forced to change their address every week. They are the ones we do not forget. They are the ones that María Corina represents. They are, today, the ones who win the Nobel Peace Prize.”
