2025 Nobel Peace Prize: Maria Corina Machado for Work Promoting Democratic Rights

Key Points

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Maria Corina 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.” The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Friday, 10 October 2025.

The award was conferred by the Norwegian Nobel Committee based on the criteria outlined by Alfred Nobel in his final will. The prize will be awarded to the person or group who has done “most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 has been particularly contentious. US President Donald Trump’s has repeatedly and publicly proclaimed his desire to be awarded the honour, citing his commitment to peace and efforts to stop wars globally.

While he has not made a public statement since the announcement, the White House has condemned the Nobel Committee’s decision, saying they “place politics over peace.”

Maria Corina Machado

Maria Corina Machado, born October 1967, is a prominent Venezuelan opposition leader and industrial engineer. According to the Nobel Prize website, “As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”

Over the last few decades, Venezuala’s democratic standards have been falling. State machinery has been employed to crush dissent. The majority of the country lives in poverty, while the elite hoard wealth for themselves. Elections and other democratic practices have been eroded and are controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Violence, inflation, and shortages of essential goods have become a constant.

Machado has worked to unify the political opposition in Venezuela and has fought for free and fair elections in the country. Unlike the majority of the Venezuelan opposition, she has been an advocate of ‘popular capitalism’ rather than Chavismo, the dominant ideology in the nation. She has argued for privatisation of state-run companies, international intervention to remove President Maduro from power, and judicial independence.

In 2002, she started her political career by founding Súmate, a vote-monitoring organization. She has run for office many times and served has previously served as a member of the National Assembly. She helped lead the 2014 Venezuelan protests against President Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.

In 2023, she was elected as the opposition candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. But she was debarred from contesting. In 2024, she then helped organise hundreds of volunteers to keep watch of the election. In the end, they managed to document the polling processes and final tallies before they could be destroyed by the ruling government.

Over the next year, she was hounded by the government and forced into hiding, citing fears for her life. During a brief reappearance, Maduro’s troops even tried to arrest her in a violent encounter.

See Also: 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi for Work in Metal-Organic Frameworks

Why Did She Win?

“Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy,” the Nobel Committee’s statement read.

The statement talked extensively about the degrading democratic foundations across the globe, emphasising a growing trend of authoritarian regimes resorting to violence against their citizens. It said that “in 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.”

It also praised the Machado’s actions, saying, “This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground.”

The statement concluded that “Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace. She embodies the hope of a different future, one where the fundamental rights of citizens are protected, and their voices are heard. In this future, people will finally be free to live in peace.”

The Recipient and The Reception

The Norwegian Nobel Institute reached out to Machado by phone, shortly before the announcement. When informed of the committee’s decision, she responded saying, “Oh my God. Well, I have no words.”

“Thank you so much, but I hope you understand this is a movement. This is an achievement of a whole society. I am just one person. I certainly do not deserve this,’ she continued.

This announcement is the fifth of ‘Nobel Week’, following prizes in Literature, Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine, which were announced on 9^th, 8^th, 7^th, and 6^th October 2025, respectively. The winner(s) for Economic Sciences will be declared on Monday, 13 October 2025. The formal Nobel ceremony is scheduled to take place in Stockholm on 10 December 2025, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. [Rh/DS]

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