Indeed, if Maria Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Prize for Peace, was the kind of “brave and committed champion of peace… a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” as the Norwegian Nobel Committee claims, the entire world should be concerned, as much about the politics of the recipient of the honour as the wisdom of those who have been bestowing it annually, unfailingly, since 1901.
Absurd enough, the European parliament, in 2024, conferred the Andrei Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought, named after the Soviet nuclear physicist and 1975 Nobel laureate, jointly upon Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, widely believed to have won the Venezuelan 2024 presidential election.
Venezuela’s opposition leader may have waged a relentless campaign against the brutalities and excesses of the third-term autocratic President Nicolas Maduro’s regime over the past decade and more. First elected to the National Assembly in 2006, Machado was arbitrarily barred from the 2024 presidential race as the candidate of the opposition Unitary Platform.
But in a checkered career, the trained engineer has also been twice tainted for treason—once in the 2002 attempted coup d’etat against then president Hugo Chavez, where Machado was a signatory to the Pedro Carmona declaration that sought to dissolve all government institutions. The other relates to her role in the 2004 recall referendum to overthrow Chavez, in a move linked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The who’s who of today’s populists and dictators count among Machado’s close allies. She dutifully dedicated the award to US President Donald Trump, who spares no dehumanising language to despise migrant arrivals from across Latin America as “border bloodbath”.
The US military strikes on suspected drug boats off the Venezuelan coast in recent weeks, which have killed at least 21 people, are apparently fair game for Machado, who has described Maduro as “head of a narco-terrorist structure of cooperation”.
Observers believe the operation is aimed at ousting the regime in Caracas, and the UN Security Council members have questioned its legality under international law. The secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, the man behind the boat bombings, is among the congressmen who nominated Machado for the Nobel.
Beyond the western hemisphere, Machado once likened Venezuela’s struggle for democracy to Israel’s under Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for the war crimes of starvation and genocide.
Reports have surfaced since Friday’s announcement that Machado had, in 2020, signed a cooperation agreement with his right-wing Likud party.
Ironically, the 2025 Peace Prize has united supporters and opponents of President Trump in their dismay over the decision. The ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement is sure to convert its present rage into even more aggressive lobbying until next year’s announcement.
