María Corina Machado Wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
October 10, 2025
Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach
This morning, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” according to committee’s announcement.
María Corina Machado, born in Caracas in 1967, is an industrial engineer by training and a leading force in Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement. Early in her activism, she co-founded a civic organization devoted to election monitoring and citizen participation. From 2011 to 2014, María served as a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, earning recognition for her vocal criticism of institutional abuses and growing repression under successive governments. During her time in office, she spoke openly against the militarization of Venezuelan society and defended democratic norms even as political space narrowed around her.
María was disqualified from holding public office by a 2023 ruling that barred her for 15 years, but she remained central to the Venezuelan opposition. She won nearly unanimous support in opposition primaries, despite her formal disqualification, and helped unify a fractious coalition into a more coherent movement for democratic renewal.
After repeated threats on her life, María is currently in hiding. For the last 14 months—organizing from undisclosed locations, occasionally surfacing to address supporters, and enduring detentions and other attempts to silence her—she has continued the fight for democratic rights, full representation, and a peaceful transition to constitutional governance. Her perseverance in such conditions has become emblematic: She has walked highways, taken shelter in supporters’ homes, and traveled by motorcycle across Venezuela to maintain her connection to people and movement. That she has had the courage to remain in her country under these conditions was noted by the committee.
Throughout her public career, María has built bridges across opposition factions, called out authoritarian trends, and argued that democracy is foundational to peace, both within nations and between them. “Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate,” said the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in its statement. “She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.”
This year’s prize joins a distinguished list of Peace Prizes that the Committee has previously awarded, in fulfillment of Alfred Nobel’s will, which recognizes efforts of “the greatest benefit to humankind.” JA Worldwide salutes the courageous work of María Corina Machado, as well as the other 337 candidates for this year’s prize. Ninety-four of those nominees were organizations, including JA Worldwide.
The announcement begins at 15:57 in the video, above.