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- author, Juan Francisco Alonso
- To roll, BBC News World
María Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will not participate this Wednesday (12/10) in the award ceremony in Oslo (Norway), the Norwegian Nobel Institute reported.
Machado was expected to attend the ceremony at Oslo City Hall, alongside King Harald V, Queen Sonja and Latin American leaders including Presidents Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador.
There was speculation about the laureate’s presence in the days leading up to the event, but to date her whereabouts are unknown.
“Unfortunately, she is 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 selection body, told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
Despite her absence, the ceremony continues and it will be Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, who will receive the award and deliver a speech on her mother’s behalf, Harpviken added.
In October, the Nobel Prize committee decided to award the prize to the opposition leader for her “tireless efforts to promote rights and freedoms in Venezuela” and for advocating “for a just and peaceful transition to democracy.”
“María Corina Machado has dedicated years to the fight for freedom of the Venezuelan people,” emphasized the institution, which added that “the iron control of power by the Venezuelan government and its repression against the population is not a unique phenomenon in the world.”
“My God… I have no words,” was the opposition leader’s first reaction when she learned last October that she had become the first Venezuelan to receive this award.
“This is the achievement of a movement, of a society. I certainly do not deserve such an award, but I receive it with humility and gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people,” he said in a telephone interview with Harpviken, also chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
The presence of María Corina Machado had been announced a few weeks earlier by the Norwegian Nobel Institute. This is why it was thought that she would go to the Norwegian capital.
The opposition leader has not been seen in public since January 9, when she led a protest in Caracas against the inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for a third consecutive term.
At the end of 2024, Machado announced he would go underground, amid the wave of repression with which Venezuelan authorities responded to protests sparked after the disputed presidential election results, which left more than 2,000 people detained, including dozens of opposition leaders.
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The leader has become the main voice of dissent against the Maduro government, in power since 2013, the date of the death of Hugo Chávez (1954-2013).
In October 2023, she was chosen as the unified opposition candidate in the primary elections, but the authorities prevented her from running in the presidential election on 07/28/24.
Despite this, Machado did not sit idly by and supported the diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who, according to data obtained by the opposition, won the rallies with 66% of the votes. Despite this, the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner without presenting evidence to justify its decision.
Machado was already known in the country since 2003, when, through the Súmate organization, she promoted a referendum to revoke the mandate of then-President Chávez.
In 2010, she was elected deputy. Two years later, in 2012, he had a tense confrontation with the then president, whose policy of nationalization of companies he criticized.
“To expropriate is to steal,” she said. Chávez responded: “He even called me a thief. He called me a thief in front of the country.”
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“We will miss her”
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab warned the opposition leader a few weeks ago that if she left the country, she would be considered a “fugitive” and that he would try to arrest her if she tried to return.
Since 2014, Machado has been banned from leaving Venezuela, imposed by a national court in response to his alleged participation in the violent episodes that resulted from the march in Caracas on 02/12/2014.
This same case led to the arrest of former mayor and former presidential candidate Leopoldo López. Even though more than a decade has passed and Machado has never been formally prosecuted, the judicial restraint remains in effect.
On the other hand, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello adopted a less severe tone and, in recent days, publicly announced Machado’s departure from the country.
“We’re going to miss her,” Cabello said on her public television show.
“The team has been installed in Norway for days. And, although the media machine says that no one knows where she is, the reality is less poetic. The woman left the country with the same elegance with which Edmundo González organized her rapid exit from the country. No disappearance or drama, just operational logistics and planes that travel silently with diplomatic immunity,” he said.
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