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The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner is Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced. Machado, 58, was awarded “for her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the committee said.
The opposition leader led protests after last year's presidential election, which the opposition says was rigged by the government to keep authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro in power. The protests failed to reverse Maduro's continued presidency.
“This huge award for all Venezuelans is an impetus to achieve our goal: to gain freedom,” Machado said on social media. “Venezuela will be free,” the opposition leader emphasized.
Machado has greatly limited her public activities in recent months and communicates with her supporters and the world mainly through social media. The media reported on her last public appearance in Venezuela in January this year. On that occasion, she was briefly detained, according to her team. According to some media, she is now living illegally. When she received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament last year, her daughter Ana Corina Sosa took over it.
According to Machado, the opposition is"on the threshold of victory." To achieve its goals, it is counting on the support of the United States and US President Donald Trump, other nations in Latin America, and democratic countries, which Machado describes as"our main allies."
"She is one of the bravest women or politicians in general on our planet at this moment. For many years, she has been a principled opposition to the Venezuelan dictatorship," commented political scientist Jaroslav Bílek from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University on the award.
Last year, the Venezuelan fighter for political freedom and citizens' rights received the Václav Havel Prize for Human Rights, which has been awarded since 2013 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, together with the Václav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation."The Havel Prize has preceded the Nobel Prize for several times. This underlines the importance of his legacy," added former diplomat and politician Michael Žantovský.
White House: The decision is political
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Venezuelan woman the Nobel Peace Prize after repeated public statements by US President Trump that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his achievements in ending wars around the world. The White House called Machado's award political, saying that Trump should have received the prize.
The deadline for nominations for the prestigious award expired on January 31, just after Trump took office. The Nobel committee made its final decision on the award this week, even before the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement based on Trump's plan.
The awarding of the prize to Machado was indirectly criticized by the Israeli forum, which brings together the families and loved ones of some of the hostages abducted in the Gaza Strip."Although the Nobel Committee chose a different laureate, the truth is clear and cannot be doubted: no leader or organization has done more for peace in the world than US President Donald Trump," the organization's statement was quoted by The Times of Israel as saying.
"It is a very well-deserved recognition of the great struggle of one woman and of the entire people for our freedom and democracy," said Edmundo González Urrutia, who, according to most of the Venezuelan opposition, won last year's presidential election.
"Democracy lives on the courage of individuals. Maria Corina Machado has been fighting tirelessly for years for freedom and the rule of law in Venezuela - values that we also support around the world," wrote German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also congratulated Machado."This award pays tribute to your courage and conviction. And to every voice that refuses to be silenced. In Venezuela and elsewhere in the world," von der Leyen said.
"We deeply appreciate her (Machadová's) relentless efforts to promote democracy and human rights in Venezuela, which were also awarded the Václav Havel Prize last year. The Czech Republic stands firmly on the side of those who courageously defend freedom and human dignity," said Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský (unpublished).
According to DPA, the committee received 338 nominations this year, of which 244 are individuals and 94 are organizations. Last year, when the Nobel Peace Prize was won by the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, which strives for a world without nuclear weapons, there were 52 fewer nominations.
Nobel Week
On Monday, Sweden's Karolinska Institute announced the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The award went to Americans Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell and Japanese Shimon Sakaguchi for discoveries in the field of immunology related to the so-called peripheral tolerance.
On Tuesday, the academy announced that this year's Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded to Briton John Clarke, Frenchman Michel H. Devoret, and American John M. Martinis for their research into quantum mechanics.
On Wednesday, the academy announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Japanese Susumu Kitagawa, Australian-based British scientist Richard Robson, and American Omar M. Yaghi for their research on metal-organic networks.
On Thursday, the academy selected Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai as the laureate of the Literature awards.
The announcement will conclude on Monday, October 13, with the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Economics. The laureates will officially receive the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish scientist and founder of the prize, Alfred Nobel.
