María Corina Machado, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, will be in Oslo but will not attend the ceremony in the Norwegian capital to collect the honor, according to the organization that hands out the award.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute said in a statement on Wednesday that “although she will not be able to reach the ceremony and today’s events, we are profoundly happy to confirm that she is safe and that she will be with us in Oslo.”
In recent days, there has been widespread confusion about whether Ms. Machado would travel to Oslo and collect the award in person.
Kristian Berg Harpviken, the head of the Nobel Institute, had told the NRK, Norway’s national broadcaster, earlier on Wednesday that Ms. Machado was not in the Norwegian capital and would not be onstage at Oslo City Hall at 1 p.m., when the ceremony is set to begin.
That came after recent days in which Norwegian officials had said that they had expected Ms. Machado to attend the ceremony. On Saturday, Mr. Harpvikensaid Ms. Machado had confirmed she would be in the capital for the event.
NRK reported on Wednesday that Ms. Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, would accept the award on her behalf.
Ms. Machado, the de facto opposition leader in Venezuela, has been in hiding since last year’s election in Venezuela, after the government of President Nicolás Maduro threatened to arrest her on multiple occasions. She appeared in public for the first time at a protest in January after being in hiding for months.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute said in its statement that it was a “journey in a situation of extreme danger.”
For more than two decades, Ms. Machado has been one of the leading voices of Venezuela’s democratic opposition movement.
She became a political activist in the early 2000s and founded Súmate, a voter rights group that led a failed effort to recall Hugo Chávez, the former president and founder of Venezuela’s modern socialist movement. She later became a central figure resisting the increasingly authoritarian rule of his successor, Mr. Maduro.
In 2010, Ms. Machado was elected to the National Assembly. Although she had significant public support, she was unable to dislodge Venezuela’s leftist leadership through elections. In 2014, she was stripped of her seat.
In 2023, Ms. Machado won an opposition primary but was blocked from running for president by Venezuelan authorities in 2024.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute awarded Ms. Machado the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize in October for her contributions to advance democracy in Venezuela.
After Ms. Machado has been in hiding, her daughter has accepted several awards on her behalf, including the Sakharov Prize for the Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament and the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize from the Council of Europe.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jin Yu Young is a reporter and researcher for The Times, based in Seoul, covering South Korea and international breaking news.
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