María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s ‘Iron Lady,’ Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Machado, who leads the Vente Venezuela opposition party against President Nicolás Maduro, was lauded for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”
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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has won the Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 10.
Dubbed Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” Machado is the 20th woman and the first Venezuelan to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fun facts: The Nobel Peace Prize
- Between 1901 and 2025, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 143 laureates, including 112 individuals and 31 organizations.
- Previous honorees include American President Woodrow Wilson, anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” the committee said in its announcement. “Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended—with words, with courage and with determination.”
Machado, 58, was shocked by the award, telling Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, that she had “no words.”
“I thank you so much,” she said when Harpviken called to tell her the news. “But I hope you understand this is a movement. This is an achievement of a whole society. I am just one person.”
She added, “This is certainly the biggest recognition to our people that certainly deserve it.”
Machado, who leads the Vente Venezuela opposition party, attempted to run against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro last year. But the Maduro government disqualified her, part of what the nonprofit Humans Rights Watch described as “irregular government actions and human rights violations” ahead of the election. Her ally, Edmundo González, ran instead.
The National Electoral Council quickly declared Maduro the winner. But the opposition said its vote tally showed it had won by a clear margin, with leaders in the United States and Europe recognizing González as the winner.
Protests erupted across Venezuela. Authorities and armed pro-government groups called “colectivos” responded with force, leading to the deaths of more than 20 individuals. Roughly 200 individuals were injured, and around 2,400 were arrested. Hundreds of people remain imprisoned for political reasons, including dozens who supported Machado’s campaign.
Machado has spent much of the past year in hiding, making her last public appearance in January. González fled to Spain after a judge issued an arrest warrant for him. Maduro, meanwhile, was sworn in for his third six-year term in January.
According to the Nobel Committee, Venezuela has evolved from “a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis. … The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country’s own citizens.”
Machado was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1967 to a prominent family in the country’s steel industry. After studying industrial engineering and finance, she briefly worked for the family business, Sivensa, before establishing a nonprofit to care for impoverished and orphaned street children in Caracas.
In 2002, Machado co-founded Súmate, an organization that promotes free and fair elections. The group helped organize a recall referendum on then-President Hugo Chavez, which ultimately failed. But the volunteer-led group was not discouraged and continued to operate as an “electoral watchdog.”
“Something clicked,” Machado told the Washington Post’s Nora Boustany in 2004. “I had this unsettling feeling that I could not stay at home and watch the country get polarized and collapse. … We had to keep the electoral process but change the course, to give Venezuelans the chance to count ourselves, to dissipate tensions before they built up. It was a choice of ballots over bullets.”
In 2010, Machado was elected to the National Assembly of Venezuela. But four years later, the Maduro government expelled her from office. In 2017, she helped create the Soy Venezuela alliance, which brought together diverse, pro-democracy opposition movements in the country.
The Nobel Committee noted that Maduro’s “rigid hold on power” and his “repression of the population” are not unique in a world “where democracy is in retreat.”
“We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarization,” the announcement says.
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots group of atomic bomb survivors from Japan who fight for nuclear disarmament.
All this week, the Nobel Committee has been announcing awards in physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry and literature. On Monday, officials will reveal the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Each prize comes with a monetary award of 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million), which is split if multiple laureates are recognized. The prizes were established with the fortune of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor who died in 1896.
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