Maria Corina Machado wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

By Mark Ogagan

Venezuelan opposition politician, Maria Corina Machado, the  who was barred from standing in last year’s presidential election, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

In a post on the social media platform X on Friday, the Nobel Committee said it had decided to award the prize to 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”.

Announcing Machado’s win in Oslo, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Nobel Committee, said the award had gone “to a brave and committed champion of peace, to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness”.

He added that she meets “all the criteria” laid out by Alfred Nobel for the prize, which states that the prize shall be given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

Machado – who is known as the “Iron Lady” in Venezuela and is only the 20th woman out of 143 laureats awarded since the start of the prize in 1901 – said she was “in shock” after she learned she had been awarded the prize, according to a video sent by her press team to the AFP news agency.

“I’m in shock!” she is heard saying by telephone to Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who replaced her as the candidate in the last presidential election after she was barred from running.

Maria Corina Machado Parisca, 58, is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition party, Vente Venezuela. Machado campaigns for transparent democracy, 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.

Born on October 7, 1967, in Caracas, the eldest of four daughters, she has a degree in industrial engineering and a Master’s degree in finance.

The mother of three entered politics in 2002 as cofounder of the volunteer civil association called Sumate, which seeks to unite people amid polarisation under Nicolas Maduro’s rule.