image source, Odd ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images
According to the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado will not be present at the awards ceremony in Oslo this Wednesday.
Machado was scheduled to attend the ceremony at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja and Latin American leaders, including Presidents of Argentina Javier Milei and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa.
There has been speculation about the winner’s presence, but her whereabouts are currently unknown.
“Unfortunately he is not in Norway and will not be on the stage of Oslo City Hall at 1 p.m. when the ceremony begins,” Kristian Berg Harpkiven, director of the institute and permanent secretary of the selection panel, told NRK Radio.
Last October, the Nobel Prize Committee decided to recognize the opposition for its “tireless efforts to promote rights and freedoms in Venezuela” and for its advocacy for “a just and peaceful transition to democracy.”
“María Corina Machado has fought for the freedom of the Venezuelan people for years,” the institution stressed, adding that “the strict control of power by the Venezuelan government and its repression of the population are not a unique phenomenon in the world.”
“My God… I’m at a loss for words,” was her opponent’s first reaction when she heard the news last October that she was the first Venezuelan to receive the award.
“This is the achievement of a movement, of a society. I certainly do not deserve such an award, but I accept it with humility and gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people,” he added during the telephone conversation with Kristian Berg Harpviken, president of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
Machado’s presence was announced by the Nobel Institute weeks ago. And that’s why it was thought that he could travel to the Norwegian capital.
The President of Panama, José Murillo, was already in Oslo to offer “Panamas support for the freedom of the Venezuelan people” while awaiting the arrival of the President of Argentina, Javier Milei.
The opponent has not been seen in public since January 9 last year, when she led a demonstration in Caracas against the swearing in of Nicolás Maduro for the third consecutive day.
At the end of 2024, Machado announced that he would go underground, amid the wave of repression with which the Venezuelan authorities responded to protests in the country following the disputed presidential election results in which more than 2,000 people were arrested, including dozens of opposition leaders.
image source, Lise Åserud/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
The leader has become the main voice of dissidence against the Maduro government, which took power in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chávez.
In October 2023, she was elected in a primary as the Unity Opposition candidate, but authorities prevented her from participating in the presidential election on July 28, 2024.
However, Machado did not stand idly by and supported diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who, according to minutes collected by the opposition, won the elections with 66% of the vote, although the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner without providing evidence of this decision.
The figure of Machado became known to Venezuelans starting in 2003, when the Súmate organization promoted the process of launching a referendum aimed at revoking the mandate of the late Chávez.
In 2010 she was elected deputy and in 2012 she had a tense exchange with the late president, whose corporate nationalization policy she questioned.
“To expropriate is to steal,” he snapped, while Chávez replied: “He even called me a thief. He called me a thief in front of the country.”
image source, Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab warned the opposition a few weeks ago that he would consider them a “fugitive” and try to arrest them if they left the country if they tried to return.
Since 2014, Machado has been banned from leaving the country by a Venezuelan court, imposed in response to his alleged involvement in the violent events that led to a march in Caracas on February 12, 2014.
For this case, former mayor and former presidential candidate Leopoldo López was imprisoned.
Although more than a decade has passed since these events and Machado has never been prosecuted, the judicial measure has been upheld.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who announced Machado’s departure in recent days, was less harsh.
“We will miss them,” he said in the program he hosted on state television.
“The team has been stationed in Norway for days. And although the media machine tells the story that no one knows where it is, the reality is less poetic. The woman left the hairdresser (left) with the same grace with which Edmundo González made his express departure from the country. No disappearances or drama, picture-perfect logistics and planes that travel in silence and with diplomatic immunity,” he explained.
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