How satisfying to see a battler for democracy win the Nobel Peace Prize. This year’s winner, Venezuelan Maria Corina Machado, joins the ranks of other such laureates as human rights activist Narges Mohammadi of Iran, journalist Maria Rossa of the Philippines and writer Liu Xiaobo of China.
According to the Nobel Committee, she was awarded the prize “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 question often arises as to whether the laureate has actually done anything related to the award’s title. Many have done important things but not things directly connected to achieving peace. Machado is an example.
According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Prize is awarded to the person who in the preceding year “shall have done the 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.”
But over the years, the Nobel Committees have greatly expanded the awards to leaders who champion “arms control and disarmament, peace negotiation, democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world.” Machado fits nicely under “democracy and human rights.”
She has been highly effective in unifying political opposition to the autocratic rule of Hugo Chávez and Nicholás Maduro and their “Bolivarian Republic,” steadfastly resisting the militarization of her country and supporting free elections and representative government. According to Nobel chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Machado has been a “key, unifying figure … in a brutal authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis.”
Venezuela is indeed in crisis. According to Human Rights Watch, “Over 20 million Venezuelans live in multidimensional poverty due to economic precarity and poor public services, having irreversibly lost their means of support and subsistence, and 14.2 million face severe humanitarian needs.” Roughly 8 million have fled the country since 2014.
The United Nations Panel of Electoral Experts and the Carter Center, both of which observed Venezuela’s 2024 elections, said they lacked transparency and integrity and questioned the declared results that declared Maduro the winner. They granted credibility to the tally sheets the opposition made public which indicated that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won by a significant margin.
Canada, the U.S. and the European Union have all refused to recognize the elections and have imposed sanctions on the regime. Despite serious danger to her life, Machado has remained in Venezuela, albeit in hiding, an inspiration to millions of her countrymen and women.
Announcing the recipient of the prize, the Nobel Committee warned that “democracy is in retreat” across the world. In receiving her award, Machado declared, “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” How ironic that in receiving the prize, the laureate dedicates it to a man who is undermining democracy in his own country.