Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her "tireless work promoting democratic rights" and a peaceful transition from dictatorship in the country.
The Nobel Committee said Machado, known as the "iron lady", was awarded the prize for "for her efforts to advance democracy in Venezuela." She was also recently named in Time's '100 Most Influential People of 2025'.
Who Is Maria Corina Machado?
- Maria Corina Machado was born in 1967 in Venezuela. She studied engineering and finance and had a brief career in business before turning her focus to social and political causes. In 1992, she founded the Atenea Foundation, an organisation dedicated to supporting street children in Caracas.
- In 2002, Machado co-founded Sumate, an organisation that promotes free and fair elections in Venezuela. Sumate conducts voter training and election monitoring, and it has played an important role in advocating for transparency and democratic rights.
- In 2010, Machado was elected to the National Assembly, winning a record number of votes. During her time as a parliamentarian, she was one of the strongest critics of the Nicolas Maduro regime, denouncing institutional abuses, economic mismanagement, and human rights violations. In March 2014, after speaking at the Organisation of American States about human rights abuses in Venezuela, she was arbitrarily expelled from her position by the President of the National Assembly.
- Machado co-founded Vente Venezuela, a liberal opposition party, in 2013 and served as its National Coordinator. In 2017, she helped establish the Soy Venezuela alliance, which unites various pro-democracy groups across political divides. In 2023, she announced her candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, but when she was blocked from running, she supported opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
- For more than 14 months, Machado has been in hiding due to threats and repression from President Maduro's regime, as per The NY Post. She went underground after the disputed 2024 presidential election, which international observers and opposition groups widely called fraudulent. The government blocked her from running, and afterward, she and other opposition leaders were accused of treason and conspiracy.
Maria Machado was chosen from 338 candidates, 244 individuals and 94 organisations, for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. It is worth 11 million Swedish crowns. The award will be presented in Oslo on December 10, on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
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