The leader of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado, will not receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person at the ceremony this Wednesday (10) in Oslo, said the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
María Corina, 58, was to receive the award at a ceremony at Oslo City Hall attended by King Harald, Queen Sonja and Latin American leaders, including Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.
The opposition leader’s presence would contravene a decade-old travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country, and after going more than a year without being seen in public, her whereabouts are unknown.
“She is unfortunately not in Norway and will not be on stage at Oslo City Hall at 1 p.m. when the ceremony begins,” Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the institute and permanent secretary of the award body, told broadcaster NRK.
When asked where she was, Harpviken replied: “I don’t know.”
The ceremony will still take place. When a laureate cannot be present, a close family member usually receives the prize and delivers the Nobel speech.
In this case, it will be María Corina’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, Harpviken said.
María Corina won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 10 “for her tireless work for the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her fight for a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy” in the country, according to the organization.
She dedicated the award in part to U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he deserved the honor.
The opponent remains close to sectors aligned with Trump, who accuse Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro of being involved in criminal organizations that would pose a direct threat to American national security – a position questioned by some sectors of Washington intelligence.
María Corina won the opposition primaries for the 2024 presidential election by a wide margin, but was not allowed to run. After the disputed election, which resulted in Maduro’s official declaration of victory, she went underground in August, when the regime stepped up arrests of opponents.
The awarding of the Nobel Prize coincides with American military mobilization in the Caribbean and the Pacific, where more than 80 people were killed in American attacks on ships used, according to Washington, to transport drugs.
The United States says the offensives, which began in August, are part of operations against drug trafficking, but experts question the legality of the attacks, and Maduro insists the goal is to topple him and seize the wealth of oil-rich Venezuela.
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