Nobel Peace Prize for Venezuelan dissident María Machado: “Democracy is in retreat”

LONDON – The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting the democratic rights of the people of Venezuela and for her fight to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Nobel Committee said.

The Nobel Committee described the Venezuelan politician and industrial engineer who is currently the leader of the opposition in Venezuela as “a brave and committed defender of peace.”

“Machado receives the Nobel Peace Prize primarily for his efforts to promote democracy in Venezuela,” the committee said. “But democracy is also in decline at the international level. Democracy, understood as the right to freely express one’s opinion, to cast a vote and to be represented in an elective government, is the basis of peace both within countries and between them.”

“María Corina Machado has led the fight for democracy in the face of ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela. Ms. Machado studied engineering and finance, and had a short career in business,” the Nobel Committee said. “In 1992 she created the Atenea Foundation, which works to benefit street children in Caracas. Ten years later she was one of the founders of Súmate, which promotes free and fair elections and has carried out training and electoral monitoring. In 2010 she was elected to the National Assembly, obtaining a record number of votes. The regime expelled her from office in 2014. Ms. Machado leads the opposition party Vente Venezuela and in 2017 helped found Soy Alianza Venezuela, which unites pro-democracy forces in the country across political fault lines.”

The announcement was made on Friday morning, but the actual awards ceremony will take place on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.

“Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace,” the committee stated. “However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are defying norms and resorting to violence. The Venezuelan regime’s rigid control of power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends globally: abuse of the rule of law by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards governments authoritarianism and militarization. In 2024, more “Elections were held more than ever, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.”

“María Corina Machado meets the three criteria established in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize. She has united her country’s opposition. She has never wavered in resisting the militarization of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy,” the committee said.

Last year, Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese anti-nuclear weapons group, won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that the testimony of the Hibakusha, who are the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is unique in this broader context and that their perspective helps “generate and consolidate opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

There were 338 candidates nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025, of which 244 were individuals and 94 organizations. This is a significant increase from last year, when there were 286 nominees. The largest number of nominees to date occurred in 2016, when there were 376 candidates.

The list of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize is published 50 years after it was awarded, in accordance with the statutes of the Nobel Foundation.