María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, fled the country after nearly a year in hiding to travel to Oslo, her daughter said as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her mother’s behalf Wednesday.
President Nicolás Maduro’s government, which has banned Machado from leaving Venezuela for the past decade, had said that the opposition leader would become a fugitive if she tried to leave the country. The last time she had been seen in public was in January, when she was briefly detained while leaving a rally the day before Maduro was sworn into a new term in office. She has been in hiding ever since, evading an arrest warrant against her.
Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, gave a speech on Machado’s behalf at a Nobel ceremony Wednesday and said her mother would soon be joining them in Oslo.
“Although she has not been able to be here and take part in this ceremony, I must say that my mother never breaks a promise,” she said. “And that is why, with all the joy in my heart, I can tell you that in just a few hours, we will be able to embrace her here in Oslo after 16 months.”
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, also said during the ceremony that he was “profoundly happy to confirm that she [Machado] is safe and that she will be with us here in Oslo,” but did not give a time frame for her appearance.
Earlier Wednesday, the Nobel Institute also released audio of a phone call between Machado and Frydnes before she got on a plane to Oslo. “There are many things we had to go through, and so many people who risked their lives so that I could get to Oslo. And I am very grateful to them. And this is a measure of what this recognition means to the Venezuelan people,” she said, before adding, “I literally have to fly right now.”
Machado’s spokesperson Claudia Macero confirmed to the Associated Press that Machado would not attend the ceremony but that “we are optimistic about her presence on the rest of the day’s agenda.” Macero did not give information on Machado’s current location.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, in awarding Machado the prize in October, described her as “a brave and committed champion of peace” and “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
Machado at the time dedicated the prize in part to her ally, President Donald Trump, “for his decisive support of our cause.” She has sometimes faced criticism for her public support of the Trump administration’s military campaign in the region. During one recent video appearance at a forum in Miami, she said Trump’s actions would “protect millions of lives of Latin American citizens and certainly Venezuelan citizens.”
The Trump administration has carried out nearly two dozen strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats since September, killing at least 87 people. For weeks, concerns have grown that Trump is preparing to use military force to oust Maduro. Trump, in an interview with Politico that published Tuesday morning, said Maduro’s “days are numbered” as Venezuela’s leader and declined to rule out deploying U.S. troops on the ground there.
Machado had released little information about her trip to Oslo; a planned news conference for Tuesday was canceled at the last minute.
Maduro’s government also reinforced security around the U.S. Embassy in Caracas after Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello claimed she was hiding in the building. The streets near the embassy were guarded by secret police in the days before the ceremony in Oslo.
Machado, a former Venezuelan lawmaker who was once mocked by the late President Hugo Chávez, is a longtime political foe of Maduro, who has held power since Chávez’s death in 2013.
After years on the fringes of the country’s main opposition, she became the driving force of the movement as the country approached presidential elections in 2024. She swept the primaries with more than 92 percent of the vote, but was blocked by Maduro from running. Still, Machado’s campaign for her stand-in, Edmundo González, rallied crowds across the country, becoming the biggest political threat to Maduro in more than a decade of his rule.
In July 2024, Venezuelans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the opposition, according to independent monitors and a Washington Post analysis, but Maduro refused to release the precinct-level results and claimed victory for himself. In the days after the election, Machado’s team managed to prove the opposition’s triumph by collecting the original receipts from more than 80 percent of voting machines nationwide, with the help of thousands of regular Venezuelans stationed at polling sites.
Machado has remained in hiding in Venezuela ever since, while the Maduro government has continued to arrest and repress political opponents.
González, who fled to Spain in September 2024 after Maduro’s attorney general filed a warrant for his arrest, attended Wednesday’s ceremony.
Cabello, one of the top Maduro government officials who has mocked and persecuted Machado, called Maduro’s supporters to a demonstration on Wednesday.
“We know nothing about Oslo. We didn’t participate in that auction,” Cabello said. “Check the list of winners and you’ll find the answer: everything comes back around. We have the best prize of all: the people.”
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