Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado will not be in Oslo today to receive this year’s Peace Prize, Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken confirmed to Norwegian public television NRK. Corina Machado had confirmed her intention to travel to Oslo to collect the prize, but on Tuesday her pre-event press conference had to be suspended because she was not in the city.
Corina Machado became a well-known international face before and after the Venezuelan presidential elections on July 28, 2024. The opponent had been disqualified by the Supreme Court and Edmundo González ran with her support. The official count gave victory to Nicolás Maduro, but allegations of fraud were widespread, even from Carter Center observers invited to the country by Venezuelan authorities.
Since then, he has called for an insurrection between armed forces and police to eliminate Maduro and favors international intervention in his country, but not an invasion. A few weeks ago, the opposition also celebrated Trump’s military deployment to Caribbean waters off the coast of Venezuela, following which the United States attacked several ships it accuses of being linked to drug trafficking, in actions that many experts consider to be contrary to international law.
A few days before winning the prize, Corina Machado participated in the ultra Europa Viva summit of the European far-right group Patriots. In his speech, he condemned the West’s “identity crisis” because of which citizens have turned their backs “on the values that give meaning to our future.” “What began as a socialist revolution eventually led to its inherent consequence: a criminal conspiracy in which hatred of our Western values is deployed through lies. »
The Norwegian Nobel Committee described the Venezuelan right-wing leader as “a courageous and committed defender of peace,” a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy alive amid growing darkness.” According to Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee, the award was given to him “for his tireless work for the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for his struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
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