By throwing the moral authority of the prize behind an advocate of the use of force, the Nobel Committee’s decision makes a peaceful, negotiated solution to Venezuela’s conflict less likely.
Last week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Peace Prize to María Corina Machado—a leading figure in the country’s opposition to the authoritarian rule of Nicolás Maduro. Ms. Machado’s courage and steadfastness in the struggle for Venezuelan democracy deserve recognition. However, her support for the use of force to achieve political change made her choice as a Peace Laureate paradoxical and troubling.
One year ago, Ms. Machado galvanized and electrified Venezuelans long accustomed to viewing their country’s rigged elections as meaningless. Defying government persecution and harassment, she urged citizens to use the ballot box to challenge Mr. Maduro’s authoritarian rule and helped organize a vast network of political activists who collected tally sheets showing that the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had defeated Maduro (Machado herself had been barred from running for the presidency). As she said with humility upon learning of the award, the prize should be seen as honoring the millions of Venezuelans who mobilized to demand democratic change.
Yet the Nobel Peace Prize is not a prize for courage, nor for the defense of democracy by any means. And Machado’s public statements—as well as her silences—in the week after receiving the prize demonstrate why she was an inappropriate recipient for an award that is designed to reward work towards the peaceful resolution of conflict.
In the week since Machado was awarded the Prize, Venezuela and the U.S. have edged closer to an all-out armed conflict. The Trump administration has continued to sink boats near Venezuela’s coast, resulting in the deaths of at least 27 persons whom it has accused—without proof—of being engaged in the narcotics trade. The president has stated that land attacks on Venezuelan soil are under consideration and acknowledged that he has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela, which typically involve destabilization and the targeting of political figures. On Wednesday, two US bombers circled off Venezuela’s coast in a pattern that, when mapped, formed a crude obscenity — a clear provocation intended to elicit a response from Venezuela’s Air Force which could then provide a pretext for escalation of the conflict.
Even after receiving the Nobel award, Machado has expressed her explicit and open support for these operations, going as far as dedicating her prize to President Trump along with the Venezuelan people, while praising him for “addressing this tragic situation in Venezuela as it should”, characterizing the strikes as actions of “law enforcement” and claiming that the opposition had long requested such action. When asked whether she supports an invasion of Venezuela, she has deflected the question, claiming that “Venezuela already lives an invasion” and that instead it needs a “liberation.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is not a prize for courage, nor for the defense of democracy by any means. It is meant to recognize efforts towards the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
None of this is surprising. Ms. Machado has also long been a proponent of the use of military force to depose the government of Nicolás Maduro. In 2020, she requested that the opposition-controlled National Assembly authorize foreign troops to enter Venezuela as part of a multilateral operation to take control of territory and disarm government forces. Even after receiving the prize, she told Spanish newspaper El País that in order to confront a tyranny, “moral, spiritual and physical force” were needed and that “putting force first” and a “credible threat” of military action were fundamental for producing political change.
Also concerning is Ms. Machado’s refusal to condemn the Trump administration’s violations of Venezuelans’ basic rights. Earlier this year, U.S. authorities deported more than 200 Venezuelan nationals to a Salvadoran prison, accusing them with scant evidence of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal network while denying many of them due process on the pretext that they were enemy combatants in an invasion of the U.S. Machado endorsed the deportations plan prior to its implementation, and remained silent even as evidence mounted that Venezuelans’ rights were being violated.
Machado’s silence regarding the extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans in international waters is all the more striking given the growing consensus among human-rights groups and legal experts as to the illegality of these actions. According to sources quoted by the New York Times, concerns over the killings appears to have played a role in the unusual decision of the head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Hosley, to step down after only one year of his three-year term.
Machado’s silence in the face of forced deportations and extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans reveals a disturbing choice to make the rights of Venezuelans secondary to a political objective.
Ms. Machado has also long supported economic sanctions on Venezuela. While she has argued that these sanctions are needed to deprive the Maduro regime of resources, the evidence shows that they have contributed to generating the largest peacetime economic collapse in World history and the largest migration waves ever seen in the Western hemisphere.
The Nobel Peace Prize was established in 1895 to recognize those who advanced fellowship among nations, worked toward the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and promoted peace congresses. Over the years, the Nobel Committee has interpreted this mandate broadly, honoring both world leaders who have led efforts to end conflicts and human rights and democracy activists committed to achieving change through peaceful means. The prize to Ms. Machado breaks with both traditions by honoring a figure known for her advocacy and support for the use of force to pursue political change.
Perhaps the greatest risk from this award is that, by throwing the moral authority of the prize behind an advocate of a hardline stance toward political change, it will make a peaceful, negotiated transition less probable. The award comes at a time when there is an open debate, both in Venezuela and in international policy circles, regarding the best strategy to promote democratic change. Machado’s support for external military action and her opposition to any negotiation that does not result in the complete ouster of Chavismo from power put her at one end of that spectrum. Others have pointed to the need for continued organized peaceful resistance, electoral organization, and negotiations focused on institutional reforms that make coexistence with Chavismo possible as more viable and realistic strategies for political change.
The Committee could have honored Venezuela’s democratic movement by awarding the prize to the valiant activists who collected the tally sheets that offered proof of Mr. Maduro’s defeat last year.
The Nobel Prize Committee could have decided to honor Venezuela’s democratic movement by awarding the prize to the valiant activists who collected the tally sheets that offered proof of Mr. Maduro’s defeat last year. By choosing to back one leader within that movement—and precisely the leader who is most opposed to political compromise— they may have inadvertently made a political solution less probable and a war more likely.
Only a handful of times has the Nobel Committee decided to bestow the prize on a political leader of an opposition to an authoritarian regime. Perhaps the closest example is the 1983 Nobel award to Lech Walesa, which played a key role in focusing international attention on Poland and in making possible the negotiated agreements leading to what remains the most successful economic and political transition to a market democracy in Eastern Europe. Like Walesa, Ms. Machado now faces a crucial choice: whether to use her stature to reconcile a fractured nation, or to deepen its divisions.
Francisco R. Rodríguez 