Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has been banned from running for office, campaigns for presidential candidate Edmundo González, in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Thursday, May 2, 2024.
Ariana Cubillos/AP
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Ariana Cubillos/AP
Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
In an announcement on Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Machado’s tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela is “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”
Machado has been one of the staunchest critics of the powerful United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) since it first came to power in the late 1990s.
A former legislator in the Venezuelan National Assembly, Machado has been shot at, targeted by federal prosecutors, banned from running for office, and forced into hiding by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who succeeded PSUV founder Hugo Chávez in 2013.
“I trust the Venezuelan people, and I have no doubt that the result of our fight will be the liberation of Venezuela. Maduro is totally isolated, weaker than ever. And our people want and need to know that I’m here with them,” Machado told NPR’s All Things Considered last year.
This is a developing story.