The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of her defense of democracy against authoritarianism in Venezuela. The Norwegian Committee highlighted its role in promoting free elections and building a citizen movement that seeks to restore fundamental rights and freedoms in its country.
“This immense recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is an impetus to complete our task: conquering 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 people of Latin America and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” Machado said on his social network X.
The Committee added that as leader of the democratic movement in Venezuela, María Corina Machado represents one of the most notable examples of civil courage in Latin America in recent times.
Machado has been a key and unifying figure within an opposition that for years was fragmented, but that found a point of unity in the demand for free elections and a truly representative government. In this lies the very essence of democracy: the shared will to defend the principles of popular power even in the midst of differences.
Venezuela has gone from being a prosperous and democratic nation to an authoritarian and impoverished state, today mired in a deep humanitarian and economic crisis.
The majority of citizens live in conditions of extreme poverty, while an elite concentrates power and wealth. State repression is exercised against the population itself, and almost eight million Venezuelans have left the country. The political opposition has been systematically persecuted through electoral fraud, prosecution and imprisonment.
In this hostile environment, political commitment becomes an act of courage. Since founding Súmate more than two decades ago, an organization dedicated to promoting free and fair elections, Machado has defended human rights, judicial independence and popular representation. As she herself stated then, “it was about choosing between votes and bullets.” His career has been marked by the conviction that freedom must be achieved through peaceful and democratic means.
Before the 2024 elections, Machado was named the opposition’s presidential candidate, but the regime blocked her participation. Instead of giving up, he supported the candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and promoted an unprecedented civic mobilization. Thousands of volunteers organized themselves as electoral observers, determined to safeguard the transparency of the elections despite the risk of harassment, detention or torture. Their work allowed actual results to be documented before the regime manipulated data and destroyed evidence.
Despite the repression, the Venezuelan opposition demonstrated that peaceful resistance is still possible. The independent vote count confirmed the opposition’s victory, although the regime refused to recognize it.
Venezuela’s history is also a reminder of a global trend: the decline of democracy and the advance of authoritarianism. Around the world, the rule of law is violated by those in power; the free press is silenced; critics are imprisoned and societies are pushed towards repression and militarization. In 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer were truly free and fair.
Throughout its history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has recognized men and women who, in the face of repression, kept the hope of freedom alive. Machado is part of that tradition. In the last year, she has been forced to remain underground, but has decided to remain in her country, despite threats against her life. That determination has inspired millions of Venezuelans
When authoritarian regimes consolidate their power, it becomes essential to recognize those who rise up to defend freedom. The Committee explained that democracy depends on the voices that refuse to be silent, on those who take the risk and remind us that freedom is never a guaranteed fact, but a cause that must be protected with words, with courage and with conviction.
The results of the elections in Venezuela, according to the opposition minutes
In total, 24,952 minutes were published, which is equivalent to 81.7% of all minutes in the country. But the MOE only managed to create a database with 21,952 of these records: 73.1% of the total and the majority of those published by the opposition.. The MOE concluded that Edmundo González received 67% of the votes while Nicolás Maduro only received 30%. A data that coincides with those published by the opposition and that refutes the official results that place Maduro as the winner with 51.9% of the votes.
