The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to Maria Corina Machado, said the committee in a press release on Friday.
She is receiving the Nobel Peace 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, said the committee.
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.
Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government.
As a founder of Súmate, an organisation devoted to democratic development, Machado stood up for free and fair elections more than 20 years ago. As she said: “It was a choice of ballots over bullets.”
In political office and in her service to organisations since then, Machado has spoken out for judicial independence, human rights and popular representation. She has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people.
Ahead of the election of 2024, Ms Machado was the opposition’s presidential candidate, but the regime blocked her candidacy.
She then backed the representative of a different party, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, in the election. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers mobilised across political divides.
They were trained as election observers to ensure a transparent and fair election. Despite the risk of harassment, arrest and torture, citizens across the country held watch over the polling stations. They made sure the final tallies were documented before the regime could destroy ballots and lie about the outcome.
The efforts of the collective opposition, both before and during the election, were innovative and brave, peaceful and democratic. The opposition received international support when its leaders publicised the vote counts that had been collected from the country’s election districts, showing that the opposition had won by a clear margin. But the regime refused to accept the election result, and clung to power.
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.
- Nobel
- Peace
- Maria Corina Machado
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
