The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Venezuela’s opposition leader and democracy advocate, Maria Corina Machado, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday.
Machado was honoured “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,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.
Before entering politics, Machado studied engineering and finance. She briefly worked in business before founding an organisation dedicated to supporting street children in Caracas.
According to the Committee, Machado “meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate.”
It added, “She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarization of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.”
Meanwhile, President of the United States, Donald Trump, who had claimed he deserved to win the prize, was not selected.
Since assuming office in January, Trump has repeatedly asserted that he should receive the award because, according to him, he has ended at least “seven wars.”
On Wednesday, October 8, he took credit for what he described as the possible end to an eighth conflict after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire based on his 20-point peace plan.
The following day, he reiterated his position.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do, really, but I know this: that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months, and I’ve stopped eight wars,” Trump said on Thursday. “So that’s never happened before, but they’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives.”
This year’s Peace Prize announcement is part of the Nobel week of recognitions running from October 6 to 13.
A total of 338 nominations were received for the 2025 award, including 244 individuals and 94 organisations.
The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace, and literature were created under the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite who died in 1896.
The prize in economic sciences was later introduced by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.
