OSLO/ CARACAS; Venezuela’s prominent opposition leader and democracy activist Maria Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday.
Committee Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes, while announcing the award in Oslo, praised Machado for her “tireless struggle to secure democratic rights for the Venezuelan people and to lead a peaceful and just transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
He described Machado as a key unifying figure in Venezuela’s once fragmented opposition, confronting an “authoritarian regime amid a deep humanitarian and economic crisis.”
The Nobel Committee called her “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times,” noting that she has been living in hiding for the past year but chose to remain in Venezuela despite serious threats to her life, inspiring millions of citizens.
The decision came amid international attention on other contenders, including US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed he “deserves” the prize for his conflict resolution efforts since returning to the White House for a second term in January. Trump received endorsements from Pakistan, Israel, Cambodia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, but experts in Oslo said his “America First” policies contradicted the Nobel Peace Prize’s core principles, leaving him with no realistic chance of winning.
Last year, the prestigious prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors campaigning against nuclear weapons.
The Nobel Peace Prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma, and a cash award of $1.2 million. The award ceremony will take place on December 10 in Oslo — the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. The Peace Prize is the only Nobel presented in Oslo; all other Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm.
On Thursday, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, widely regarded as Hungary’s most important living author. The 2025 Nobel Prize season concludes Monday with the announcement of the Economics Prize.
