A photo of Corina Machado among portraits of other previous Nobel Peace Prize winners in Oslo/AFP
Doubts about the presence of Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony grew yesterday after a press conference planned in Oslo was canceled.
Dozens of Venezuelan exiles traveled to the Norwegian capital to accompany the 58-year-old opposition figure, who has been living underground since August 2024 and has not been seen in public since January.
The Nobel Institute announced at the weekend the presence of Machado – an engineer by profession – as the recipient of the prize, which includes a gold medal, a diploma and a sum of 1.2 million dollars.
But yesterday he initially postponed and then canceled the appearance planned for 9 a.m. Argentine time.
“Maria Corina Machado herself said how difficult it was to come to Norway,” said Erik Aasheim, spokesman for the Nobel Institute. “We hope that you will attend the Nobel Prize ceremony in the city of Oslo today,” he added.
Machado’s former campaign manager suggested that the opponent had already left Venezuela but would return to her home country.
“How can we believe that María Corina will not return and remain in exile,” Magalli Meda said in a statement published in X.
In November, Venezuela’s attorney general warned that the Nobel Peace Prize winner would be considered a “refugee” if she left the country.
FAMILY AND ALLIES IN OSLO
While the protagonist’s whereabouts remain obscure, relatives, political allies and some Latin American presidents are waiting in Oslo.
Yesterday afternoon, the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia, a candidate for the 2024 presidential elections living in exile in Spain, and the Argentine President Javier Milei arrived.
Also invited to the ceremony are the leaders of Panama, José Raúl Mulino; from Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, and from Paraguay, Santiago Peña.
At the Grand Hotel, where Nobel laureates usually stay, the laureate’s mother, Corina Parisca, her sisters and at least two of her three children said they did not know where she was but were confident of her arrival. “God willing, so it will be,” repeated family members and anonymous admirers stationed at the hotel exit to see if he would appear, as they said.
Wrapped in a flag of the Caribbean country, Helvin Urbina, a 53-year-old former Venezuelan official currently living in Spain, waited yesterday for “the heroine, the iron woman.” But for some, the distinction is tarnished by Machado’s support for U.S. military maneuvers in the Caribbean and Pacific that killed at least 87 people in attacks on alleged drug boats.
Machado went into hiding after the July 2024 presidential election that resulted in the re-election of Nicolás Maduro. The opposition leader, who was excluded from the elections, claimed that Maduro had stolen the elections from his candidate Edmundo González and released copies of the votes cast in the voting machines as evidence of fraud. Chavismo denied these allegations, but the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries do not recognize his re-election.
Machado did not appear in public for 11 months when he took part in a protest rally in Caracas against Maduro’s inauguration for his third term.
The Nobel Prize was awarded on October 10 “for his tireless commitment to the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for his fight for a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” On the same day as Machado’s award, Chavismo will demonstrate in Caracas, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced on Monday.
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