Nobel Peace Prize goes to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado: “Committed champion of peace”

Maria Corina Machado | Via CBS News

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Venezuelan political opposition leader 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 democracy.”

Norwegian Nobel Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes, in announcing the award, called Machado “a brave and committed champion of peace.”

He lauded Machado as a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided — an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government.”

“In the past year, Miss Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions,” said Frydnes. “When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.”

“I am in shock,” Machado said after learning she had been awarded the prize on Friday, according to the French news agency AFP, which said it received a video from her press team in which she could be heard reacting to the accolade in a phone call with a close ally.

In a separate post on X, Machado said the “immense recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is an impetus to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.”

“We are on the threshold of victory and today more than ever we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” she added. “Venezuela will be free!”

Venezuela has been ruled by an autocratic regime for decades and is currently led by President Nicolas Maduro, whose election in 2024 was widely dismissed as non-democratic and whose leadership is not recognized by the U.S. and many other nations. Maduro has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with the Trump administration, which has accused Maduro of working with drug smuggling gangs that traffic narcotics into the U.S.

The administration has instead recognized an opposition politician backed by Machado, Senator Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, as the legitimate winner of the 2024 election.

In a post on social media shortly after the winner was announced, Urrutia said, “Our beloved Maria Corina Machado, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2025! Well-deserved recognition for the long struggle of a woman and of an entire people for our freedom and democracy. Venezuela’s first Nobel! Congratulations @mariacorinaya, Venezuela will be free!”

Rumors have circulated on social media for weeks that Machado, who has remained in hiding since the 2024 election, could be sheltering at the U.S. embassy in her country’s capital.  Machado has backed the U.S. military pressure on Maduro’s regime as a “necessary measure” toward the “restoration of popular sovereignty in Venezuela.”

Following a brief detention of Machado early this year, when she was arrested after leading anti-government protests in Caracas, President Trump issued a warning to Maduro about the safety of opposition leaders.

Mr. Trump said Machado was “peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the regime. The great Venezuelan American community in the United States overwhelmingly support a free Venezuela and strongly supported me. These freedom fighters should not be harmed and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!”

The Nobel Prize was established by a Swedish businessman and prolific inventor named Alfred Nobel, who died 1896. In his will, Nobel said his fortune was to be used to establish a fund to distribute prizes “to those who … shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind,” according to the Nobel Peace Prize’s website.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which determines the recipient, says the award should be given to the person who has done the most to advance peace in the world. Today that committee consists of five members, selected by the Norwegian Parliament. They consider the nominees for the prize in secret, and candidates’ names are kept under seal for 50 years. The nomination deadline is eight months before the announcement.

The award money for 2025 is 11 million Swedish kronor, the equivalent of more than 1 million U.S. dollars.

Four U.S. presidents and former presidents, as well as a former vice president, have won the Nobel Peace Prize, with former President Barack Obama winning in his first year in office for his “efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation.”

The other two sitting presidents who have been awarded the honor are Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1920. Former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and former Vice President Al Gore was given the honor in 2007.

Mr. Trump had said he “deserves” the prize, and he had expressed multiple times his desire to receive it, citing his involvement in halting foreign conflicts.

And the White House criticized the Nobel committee’s pick.

In a social media post, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said the committee “proved they place politics over peace.”

Cheung said, “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.”

Political allies of the president and some foreign leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had announced their intentions to nominate Mr. Trump for the prize, though the committee doesn’t divulge the names of nominees.

The president claims he’s ended seven wars — between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Thailand and Cambodia, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Armenia and Azerbaijan. Foreign policy experts say some of those conflicts were not full-scale wars, and several remain unresolved.

During a speech to U.S. military leaders on Sept. 30, Mr. Trump said it would be a “big insult” to the country if he didn’t get the prize.

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly last month, he said, “Everyone says I should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” citing his role in the Middle East Abraham Accords and his efforts to stop international conflicts.