Venezuelan Opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in public for the first time in 11 months early Thursday (December 11, 2025) morning, when she waved to supporters from a hotel balcony in Norway’s capital hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.

Ms. Machado and her supporters then sang Venezuela’s national anthem before she left the hotel to shake their hands. People erupted in cheers and began chanting, “Freedom! Freedom!” and “Thank you! Thank you!”

Ms. Machado, dressed in jeans and a puffer jacket, spent several minutes outside the hotel, where she was joined by members of her family and several of her closest aides.

Ms. Machado had been in hiding since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in a protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. She had been expected to attend the award ceremony on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) in Oslo, where heads of state and her family were among those waiting to see her.

Ms. Machado said in an audio recording of a phone call published on the Nobel website that she would not be able to arrive in time for the ceremony but that many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.

Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize in her place.

“She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose,” Ms. Sosa said. “That is why we all know, and I know, that she will be back in Venezuela very soon.”

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, told the award ceremony that “María Corina Machado has done everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today — a journey in a situation of extreme danger.”

“Although she will not be able to reach this ceremony and today’s events, we are profoundly happy to confirm that she is safe, and that she will be with us here in Oslo,” he said to applause.

Ms. Machado, in the audio recording published on the Nobel website, many people had “risked their lives” for her to arrive in Oslo.

“I am very grateful to them, and this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” she said, before indicating that she was about to board a plane.

Ms. Machado said that “since this is a prize for all Venezuelans, I believe that it will be received by them. And as soon as I arrive, I will be able to embrace all my family and my children that I’ve have not seen for two years and so many Venezuelans, Norwegians that I know that share our struggle and our fight.”

Show of solidarity

Prominent Latin American figures attended on Wednesday (December 10, 2025) in a signal of solidarity with Ms. Machado, including Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino and Paraguayan President Santiago Peña.

The 58-year-old Ms. Machado’s win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on October 10. Mr. Frydnes said that Venezuela has evolved into a “brutal authoritarian state”, and he described Ms. Machado as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in recent Latin American history.”

Ms. Machado won an Opposition primary election and intended to challenge President Nicolás Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo González took her place.

The lead-up to the election on July 28, 2024, saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. That increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared the incumbent the winner.

Mr. González, who sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest, attended Wednesday’s (December 10, 2025) ceremony.

U.N. human rights officials and many independent rights groups have expressed concerns about the situation in Venezuela, and called for Mr. Maduro to be held accountable for the crackdown on dissent.

Fight for freedom

“More than anything, what we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey — that to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom,” Ms. Sosa said as she delivered the lecture written for the occasion by her mother.

The speech did not refer to the current tensions between Washington and Caracas, as U.S. President Donald Trump continues a military operation in the Caribbean that has killed Venezuelans in international waters and threatens to strike Venezuela. Ms. Machado has consistently endorsed Trump’s strategy toward Venezuela.

Among many “heroes of this journey” honoured in the lecture, Ms. Sosa mentioned “the leaders around the world who joined us and defended our cause”, but did not elaborate.

Mr. Frydnes said of authoritarian leaders like Mr. Maduro that “your power is not permanent. Your violence will not prevail over people who rise and resist.”

“Mr. Maduro, accept the election result and step down,” he said.

Past winners unable to attend

Five past Nobel Peace Prize laureates were detained or imprisoned at the time of the award, according to the prize’s official website, most recently Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 and Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski in 2022.

The others were Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935.

Published – December 11, 2025 10:52 am IST

Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday (October 10, 2025) for promoting democratic rights in her country and her struggle to achieve a transition to democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

Maria Corina Machado (58) was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on October 7, 1967. She is an industrial engineer by training, and her father was a prominent businessman in Venezuela’s steel industry. Her upper-class roots have made her a target of criticism from Venezuela’s governing socialist party.

Maria Corina Machado went into ‘hiding’

Ms. Machado won a resounding victory in the Opposition’s primary election in 2023 and her rallies attracted large crowds, but a ban from holding public office prevented her from running for President against Nicolas Maduro in an election in 2024 and she went into hiding.

The country’s electoral authority and top court say Ms. Maduro, whose time in office has been marked by a deep economic and social crisis, won the election, though they have never published detailed tallies.

Ms. Machado emerged from hiding to make a brief appearance during a protest before Mr. Maduro’s inauguration in January. She was briefly arrested and then freed.

Political awakening

In 2002, while working in a steel and rebar maker owned by her family, she founded a group called Sumate — initially focused on vote monitoring but which evolved into a key Opposition group over time.

In 2012, two years after her family’s business was expropriated by the government of Hugo Chavez, she was a candidate for the first time in an Opposition primary to run against Chavez, a contest ultimately won by Henrique Capriles.

In 2023, she embarked on a fresh presidential run, fuelled by threadbare campaign events, mostly in smaller towns, which ultimately propelled her to victory in the party’s primary, winning more than 2 million votes.

Her campaign tour, undertaken by car or sometimes on foot, with limited resources, brought her closer to her supporters even as a government prohibition on her candidacy forced her party to pass the torch to ally Edmundo Gonzalez, a little-known former diplomat and academic.

Closeness with comrades

Mr. Gonzalez, currently exiled in Madrid, shared a video on social media where he can be seen talking to Ms. Machado and celebrating her Nobel Prize.

“I’m in shock. I can’t believe this… My God!” Ms. Machado can be heard saying through her cell phone.

Mr. Gonzalez, who sought diplomatic refuge and moved to Spain in September 2024 after claiming he could have been jailed or tortured had he stayed in Venezuela, has sought to maintain a close relationship with Ms. Machado. She has said they often chat about the “fight for liberty”.

Mr. Gonzalez was widely seen as the victor in the 2024 presidential election, but Mr. Maduro’s government declared him the winner and he has retained power. A number of countries do not recognise Mr. Maduro’s government as legitimate, including the U.S. and the European Union.

Advocate of liberal economic reforms

Ms. Machado advocates for liberal economic reforms, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises such as PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil company. She also supports the creation of welfare programmes aimed at aiding the country’s poorest citizens.

Collective struggle

“I hope you understand this is a movement; this is an achievement of a whole society,” Ms. Machado said in a call where she was officially informed that she had won the Peace Prize.

Though sometimes criticised for being stubborn — even by her own mother — Ms. Machado rarely speaks about herself in public. Instead, she frames her campaign as a collective struggle for redemption and unity, aiming to inspire hope among Venezuelans weary of economic hardship and social decay.

Her political activism has come at a cost, leaving her isolated, as nearly all of her senior advisers have been detained or forced to leave the country. Ms. Machado herself has accused Mr. Maduro’s administration of operating as a “criminal mafia”.

Published – October 10, 2025 06:54 pm IST