On October 10, 2025, María Corina Machado, a long-standing figure in Venezuela’s opposition movement, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—an honor that not only marks Venezuela’s first individual Nobel in any category but also places Machado among a select group of Latin American women and global female laureates. The announcement, delivered in the early hours of the morning, caught Machado by surprise. In her first reaction, she insisted, “I thank you deeply, but I hope you understand this is a movement—an achievement of an entire society. I am just one person. I certainly don’t deserve it,” as shared by the Nobel Committee’s secretary, Kristian Berg Harpviken, in a video clip circulated on social media.
Machado’s journey to this international recognition is as dramatic as it is emblematic of Venezuela’s recent history. According to Caracas Chronicles, Machado has been in hiding since January 2025, following a violent abduction by state security forces. Her only means of communication with supporters and journalists remain digital: social media posts and video calls. This isolation is the culmination of a political career defined by defiance, risk, and a relentless pursuit of democratic reform in a country that has endured more than two decades of authoritarian rule.
Her Nobel accolade specifically honors her leadership during the fiercely contested 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. Machado spearheaded an unprecedented civic electoral monitoring effort, mobilizing more than half a million volunteers—many of them women—to document and verify what she and her coalition allege was widespread electoral fraud orchestrated by President Nicolás Maduro. The Nobel Committee praised her as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times,” highlighting her ability to unify a historically divided opposition around the principles of free elections and representative government.
Machado’s influence on Venezuela’s opposition movement is not new. Born in Caracas in 1967, she first gained public attention through Súmate, an NGO she co-founded in 2002 to promote electoral transparency. Súmate’s campaign for a 2004 recall referendum against then-president Hugo Chávez gathered 3.2 million signatures, signaling the emergence of a new civil society force. By 2011, Machado had entered parliament as an independent and, in 2012, founded Vente Venezuela, a party advocating liberal economic reforms and individual freedoms. As El País noted, her vision echoes that of figures like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan—a rare stance in Venezuela’s political landscape.
Her leadership reached a new peak in November 2023 when she won the opposition’s primary, designed to select a single candidate to challenge Maduro. The victory was resounding, with Machado securing 92% of the vote, but the celebration was short-lived. Within days, authorities disqualified her from public office. Undeterred, she threw her support behind Edmundo González Urrutia, a relatively unknown former diplomat who would stand as the opposition’s candidate in the July 2024 general election.
The election itself became a flashpoint in Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. Machado’s team of volunteers meticulously tracked voting tallies across the country, presenting evidence that González Urrutia won 69.5% of the vote—a figure starkly at odds with the National Electoral Council’s declaration of Maduro’s reelection with 51%. As Machado explained in her October 28 interview on the All-In Podcast, “We needed to prove our victory for the first time. We designed a system to collect original tally sheets, scan them, and publish them for the world to see.” The effort included smuggling technology into areas with no internet access and training over a million volunteers, a feat she believes set “a new standard for electoral integrity.”
When the official results were announced, Machado called for peaceful demonstrations. The government’s response was swift and brutal. According to Global Voices, post-election repression included 25 deaths, over 2,000 detentions, and dozens of illegal raids under Operación Tun Tun. More than 800 political prisoners remain behind bars, including human rights defenders, foreigners, and minors—a situation confirmed by the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, active since 2019. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights labeled the government’s tactics as “state terrorism.”
Machado’s Nobel win has sparked polarized reactions both inside and outside Venezuela. Domestically, celebrations were subdued, with independent media offering only limited coverage. The National Syndicate for Press Workers reported that journalists who did cover the story faced threats or suspensions. Internationally, her leadership and commitment to non-violent protest have been lauded by many, but critics question her alliances and the full peacefulness of her tactics. Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Argentine Nobel laureate, voiced his concern: “I am concerned that you dedicated the Nobel to Venezuela’s aggressor, and not to your people. I believe Corina that you must analyze and know your standpoint, whether you are another piece of the United States’ colonialism, subjected to their domination interests.” Machado, for her part, dedicated the prize to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
Machado’s interview on the All-In Podcast with David Friedberg provided a sweeping overview of Venezuela’s recent history and her personal evolution from an industrial engineer to a national symbol of resistance. She traced the country’s decline from one of the wealthiest in the Americas—thanks to its 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—to one of the poorest, with a third of its population forced to flee. “We’ve been under this tyranny that has turned into a real criminal structure for 26 years,” Machado said. “It shows that you can have huge, unique natural endowments, but that’s not wealth. You need talent, you need institutions, and you need freedom.”
She described the rise of Hugo Chávez in 1999, the subsequent nationalization of the oil industry, and the state’s growing control over the economy and society. Machado was blunt about the consequences: “This kind of socialist approach does get everyone equal in absolute misery, because there’s nothing for free in life. You give away your choices, your decisions, supposedly to receive, but actually what you are getting is into a slave situation in which the state decides for you.”
The podcast also delved into the mechanics of repression under both Chávez and Maduro: the co-opting of the military, the use of oil wealth for patronage and international influence, the infiltration of criminal networks, and the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions. Machado recounted the personal risks she and her team have faced, including abductions, imprisonment, and violence. “Anyone who goes out [to protest] is either detained, harmed, killed, disappeared,” she said, noting that even online support can trigger reprisals.
Despite these challenges, Machado remains optimistic about Venezuela’s future. She credited technology and grassroots organizing for keeping the democratic movement alive and believes that international pressure—especially from the United States—has put the regime on the defensive. “We are prepared for an orderly transition. We know what we need to do in the first 100 hours, 100 days to take control of the institutions and our territory,” she told Friedberg. “We’re going to turn Venezuela from the criminal hub of the Americas into the energy hub, the technology hub and the democracy hub of the Americas.”
Machado’s story, now recognized on the global stage, is a testament to the resilience of Venezuela’s civil society and the enduring appeal of democratic ideals. For many, her Nobel Prize is not just a personal triumph but a symbol of hope for a country that has endured so much—and is still fighting for its future.
