Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado — a Venezuelan opposition leader — will not attend the ceremony to receive her award in Oslo Wednesday, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said.
Maria Corina Machado, who last appeared in public 11 months ago, was not in the Norwegian capital on the day of the ceremony, Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken told public broadcaster NRK, the Associated Press reported.
Her daughter will accept the prize on Machado’s behalf.
“We confirm that she will not attend the Nobel ceremony, but we are optimistic about her presence on the rest of the day’s agenda,” AP quoted Machado’s spokesperson Claudia Macero as saying.
Why Maria Corina Machado won’t attend the Nobel Prize ceremony
Machado has been seen only once in public since going into hiding in August 2024 amid a tense showdown with President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela’s attorney general has said 58-year-old Machado would be considered a “fugitive” if she left the country to accept the award, The Guardian reported.
Machado has been living in hiding and has not been seen in public since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in a protest in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.
Prominent Latin American figures planned to attend Wednesday’s ceremony in a signal of solidarity with Machado, including Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino and Paraguayan President Santiago Pena, the AP report said.
Why was Maria Corina Machado chosen for the Nobel?
Machado’s win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on October 10, and she was described as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
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Machado won an opposition primary election and intended to challenge President Nicolas Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez took her place.
The lead-up to the July 28, 2024, election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations. That increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared the incumbent the winner.
Gonzalez sought asylum in Spain last year after a Venezuelan court issued a warrant for his arrest.
Five past Nobel Peace Prize laureates were detained or imprisoned at the time of the award, according to the prize’s official website, most recently Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 and Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski in 2022. The others were Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935.
(With inputs from AP)
