WASHINGTON — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said Thursday that she “presented” her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Trump during a private meeting at the White House, but he has not changed his view that she does not have the support to lead her country.
Machado, who won the prize last year for her work to promote democracy in Venezuela, said she presented the 18-carat gold medal to Trump as a “recognition of his unique commitment to our freedom.” It is unclear whether the president, who has been fixated on getting the prize in recent year, accepted it. The Nobel Peace Center has maintained the award cannot be transferred.
The gesture was made on the day the two leaders met for the first time at the White House. The highly anticipated get-together came as the United States has allowed top deputies of deposed president Nicolás Maduro’s regime to remain in charge as Trump oversees the transition of power.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump went into the meeting without any expectations, other than to have a “frank and positive discussion about what’s taking place in Venezuela.”
Leavitt added that Trump continues to assert that Machado does not have the “support” or “respect” to lead Venezuela, an assessment he first made on the day ofMaduro’s capture to the surprise of many Venezuelans.
“At this moment in time, his opinion on that matter has not changed,” Leavitt said at a news briefing.
While Leavitt described Machado as a “remarkable and brave voice for many of the people in Venezuela,” she also said the United States had found an “extremely cooperative” partner in Maduro’s handpicked vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is serving as acting president of Venezuela.
“They have met all of the demands and requests of the United States and the president,” Leavitt said, noting that the Venezuelan government already agreed to release political prisoners and reached a $100-billion deal to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector.
As Machado left the White House, the scope of the discussions between her and the president remained unclear. She did not take questions from the reporters, but a few of them were able to capture a moment on video when she was greeted by supporters outside the White House. She told them: “Know that we can count on President Trump for Venezuela’s freedom.”
She then left to meet with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Capitol Hill. It was after this meeting that Machado told reporters she had presented the medal to the president.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) was one of 14 senators who met with Machado. After the meeting Scott said Machado was “very appreciative of the U.S. military” capturing Maduro and was pushing for “free and fair elections and free press.”
“We have got to continue to understand that Delcy Rodriguez is not the leader, she was never elected as a president, she is still the leader of drug cartels,” Scott said. “We need to make sure we hold her accountable.”
It appears unlikely that much will change for Machado after meeting with Trump, who largely has sidelined her and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was stolen by Maduro.
Days after Maduro was captured, Machado told CBS News the people of Venezuela had “already chosen” González Urrutia as the rightful leader of the country and that they were “ready and willing to serve our people, as we have been mandated.”
Trump, however, has maintained that before elections can take place in Venezuela, the United States needs to “fix” the country.
Asked if the president was committed to holding elections in Venezuela, Leavitt said Trump hopes to see “elections in Venezuela one day” but did not have a timeline for them yet.
Trump says he is happy with his administration’s working relationship with Rodríguez. At a White House event Wednesday, Trump called Rodríguez a “terrific person.”
The praise came after Trump said he had a “very good call” with her that morning that left him feeling hopeful that the United States and Venezuela could have a “spectacular” working relationship.
Rodriguez, in turn, used her first state of the union address Thursday to promote oil industry reforms that would drawn in foreign investment, which is in line with the Trump administration’s goals. She also criticized the Washington officials and said there was a “stain on our relations” but said she was open to strengthening the relationship.
“Let us not be afraid of diplomacy,” with the U.S., Rodriguez said in Venezuela.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Even in Venezuela, a nation battered by years of economic, social and political turmoil, the Christmas season is a time to put aside one’s troubles, spend time with family, enjoy a bit of holiday cheer — if you can escape the ubiquitous uncertainty and rumors that mark life here.
On one day social media will be ablaze with reports that President Nicolás Maduro has fled to Brazil. Or to Turkey. Or that he stopped in Turkey on his way to Qatar. Or that the U.S. invasion had begun. None of it (so far) is true.
Social media daily fuels the rumor mill, in part, because access to independent news is severely restricted.
“One hears so much on social media, but learns little,” said Begoña Monasterio, 78, who was out shopping in Caracas for ingredients to prepare las hallacas, the country’s emblematic Christmas dish. It’s a succulent mix of cornmeal, meat, olives, raisins and other delectables cooked and wrapped in banana leaves, a kind of Venezuelan tamale.
“I want to give a surprise to my eldest son, who is having a birthday during the holiday,” said the grandmother.
She toted a small shopping bag and vowed to buy “the minimum,” now the custom in a once-wealthy South American nation that has suffered a decade of hyperinflation, ravaged wages, lost savings, mass displacement and migration — the equivalent of multiple Great Depressions.
But the rumors of war, and peace — and all manner of other developments, from the trivial to the momentous — are never far away, even as shoppers make their way through storefronts and well-lighted malls brimming with holiday fare, much of it beyond most family budgets.
A lot of the current chatter-cloud hovers above María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition activist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She lives “in hiding” in the capital, though the government’s pervasive security apparatus probably watches her movements closely.
Members of the Bolivarian militia wave Venezuelan flags in Caracas on Wednesday during a march to commemorate a 19th century military battle.
(Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
After days of conflicting reports about her whereabouts, Machado showed up in Oslo a day after the Nobel award ceremony, reportedly following a covert, U.S.-aided voyage via land, sea and private jet. Thousands of ecstatic supporters greeted her in the Norwegian capital, a publicity coup for the opposition and another round of bad optics for Maduro’s embattled administration.
Though Machado did indeed make it to Norway, the Venezuelan rumor mill still churned out theories about her arrival.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro addresses supporters during a rally Wednesday in Caracas.
(Pedro Rances Mattey / Anadolu / Getty Images)
“We heard at one point that María Corina left the country in the fuselage of an airplane carrying migrants, and that once she was out los gringos would arrive,” Monasterio said. “Then we hear that Maduro has fled to Brazil. Really, nothing has turned out to be true. So I try to continue with my life, savoring my little alegrías [joys] as long as I can.”
It’s a sagacious survival strategy in a country where what will happen next is anybody’s guess. Will Maduro negotiate a stay-in-power deal with President Trump? Will U.S. forces, already amassed off the Venezuelan coast, attack? Or will the tense status quo just drag on?
“One doesn’t know whom to believe,” said Sebastián López, 33, a public employee who participated in a pro-government political rally downtown, one of a series organized these days by the ruling socialist party. “Many rumors originate outside the country, from Venezuelans who have left and can write what they want on the internet. … Yes, it’s true, María Corina left. But she’ll be back again.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt answers questions about the recent U.S. military seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
One report circulating is that high-ranking chavistas — the hard-core government supporters named after late ex-President Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor — are sending their families abroad, anticipating a U.S. strike. But there have been no reported high-level defections, a stark contrast from 2019, when Trump, during his first-term “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela, also attempted to force Maduro out.
Another rumor is that, in some fashion, Washington and its allies will officially recognize as the legitimate leaders of Venezuela the opposition tandem of Edmundo González Urrutia and Machado.
González, a veteran diplomat who lives in exile in Spain, ran as a stand-in presidential candidate for Machado in last year’s national election. Maduro claimed victory in balloting results widely denounced as fraudulent.
Whether such a move by Washington would even make much difference is not clear. During his first term, Trump followed a similar strategy, declaring Juan Guaidó, then an opposition legislator, as the U.S.-recognized president of Venezuela, providing diplomatic backing and funding for a shadow government. The gambit failed. Guaidó has since joined the large Venezuelan exile community in Miami.
The news this week that U.S. forces had seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast only fueled the prevalent climate of unease. Maduro’s government denounced the seizure as an act of international piracy. Fears now abound about a possible U.S. blockade, potentially throttling oil exports, Venezuela’s economic lifeline, and deepening hardships for civilians.
“I’ve heard all the rumors — that the invasion will happen before Christmas, that Maduro is negotiating his departure, to Doha, to Cuba, to Russia — but I pay no attention,” said Carmen Luisa Jiménez, a Maduro supporter in the capital’s working-class Artigas district. “We know that el presidente will never leave, that he will remain with us. … We are a nation of peace, but prepared to confront whatever attack comes from the United States.”
Militia members wave Venezuelan flags Wednesday in Caracas during a ceremony marking the anniversary of a 19th century military battle.
(Pedro Rances Mattey / Anadolu / Getty Images)
Sonia Bravo, 40, who hawks Christmas trinkets from a makeshift stand, has also heard that “zero hour” is imminent. She has no idea. A bigger concern, she says, are slumping sales and trying to put food on the table for her family.
“People can’t afford to buy much,” said Bravo. “Right now, anything seems possible. But what we are all hoping is this: That something will happen to end this nightmare.”
Meantime, Venezuelans will keep on stocking ingredients for las hallacas, a complex dish that can take days to prepare. There is no doubt about the delicacy’s comforting presence in homes this Christmas, providing a sense of continuity absent from so many other facets of contemporary life in Venezuela.
Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas and Times staff writer McDonnell from Mexico City.
As the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier sails to the Caribbean, the U.S. military continues striking drug-carrying boats off the Venezuelan coast and the Trump administration debates what to do about Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, one thing seems certain: Venezuela and the western hemisphere would all be better off if Maduro packed his bags and spent his remaining years in exile.
This is certainly what Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is working toward. This year’s Nobel Prize laureate has spent much of her time recently in the U.S. lobbying policymakers to squeeze Maduro into vacating power. Constantly at risk of detention in her own country, Machado is granting interviews and dialing into conferences to advocate for regime change. Her talking points are clearly tailored for the Trump administration: Maduro is the head of a drug cartel that is poisoning Americans; his dictatorship rests on weak pillars; and the forces of democracy inside Venezuela are fully prepared to seize the mantle once Maduro is gone. “We are ready to take over government,” Machado told Bloomberg News in an October interview.
But as the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. While there’s no disputing that Maduro is a despot and a fraud who steals elections, U.S. policymakers can’t simply take what Machado is saying for granted. Washington learned this the hard way in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, when an opposition leader named Ahmed Chalabi sold U.S. policymakers a bill of goods about how painless rebuilding a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq would be. We all know how the story turned out — the United States stumbled into an occupation that sucked up U.S. resources, unleashed unpredicted regional consequences and proved more difficult than its proponents originally claimed.
To be fair, Machado is no Chalabi. The latter was a fraudster; the former is the head of an opposition movement whose candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won two-thirds of the vote during the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election (Maduro claimed victory anyway and forced González into exile). But just because her motives are good doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question her assertions.
Would regime change in Caracas produce the Western-style democracy Machado and her supporters anticipate? None of us can rule it out. But the Trump administration can’t bank on this as the outcome of a post-Maduro future. Other scenarios are just as likely, if not more so — and some of them could lead to greater violence for Venezuelans and more problems for U.S. policy in Latin America.
The big problem with regime change is you can never be entirely sure what will happen after the incumbent leader is removed. Such operations are by their very nature dangerous and destabilizing; political orders are deliberately shattered, the haves become have-nots, and constituencies used to holding the reins of power suddenly find themselves as outsiders. When Hussein was deposed in Iraq, the military officers, Ba’ath Party loyalists and regime-tied sycophants who ruled the roost for nearly a quarter-century were forced to make do with an entirely new situation. The Sunni-dominated structure was overturned, and members of the Shia majority, previously oppressed, were now eagerly taking their place at the top of the system. This, combined with the U.S. decision to bar anyone associated with the old regime from serving in state positions, fed the ingredients for a large-scale insurgency that challenged the new government, precipitated a civil war and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Regime change can also create total absences of authority, as it did in Libya after the 2011 U.S.-NATO intervention there. Much like Maduro today, Moammar Kadafi was a reviled figure whose demise was supposed to pave the way for a democratic utopia in North Africa. The reality was anything but. Instead, Kadafi’s removal sparked conflict between Libya’s major tribal alliances, competing governments and the proliferation of terrorist groups in a country just south of the European Union. Fifteen years later, Libya remains a basket case of militias, warlords and weak institutions.
Unlike Iraq and Libya, Venezuela has experience in democratic governance. It held relatively free and fair elections in the past and doesn’t suffer from the types of sectarian rifts associated with states in the Middle East.
Still, this is cold comfort for those expecting a democratic transition. Indeed, for such a transition to be successful, the Venezuelan army would have to be on board with it, either by sitting on the sidelines as Maduro’s regime collapses, actively arresting Maduro and his top associates, or agreeing to switch its support to the new authorities. But again, this is a tall order, particularly for an army whose leadership is a core facet of the Maduro regime’s survival, has grown used to making obscene amounts of money from illegal activity under the table and whose members are implicated in human rights abuses. The very same elites who profited handsomely from the old system would have to cooperate with the new one. This doesn’t appear likely, especially if their piece of the pie will shrink the moment Maduro leaves.
Finally, while regime change might sound like a good remedy to the problem that is Venezuela, it might just compound the difficulties over time. Although Maduro’s regime’s remit is already limited, its complete dissolution could usher in a free-for-all between elements of the former government, drug trafficking organizations and established armed groups like the Colombian National Liberation Army, which have long treated Venezuela as a base of operations. Any post-Maduro government would have difficulty managing all of this at the same time it attempts to restructure the Venezuelan economy and rebuild its institutions. The Trump administration would then be facing the prospect of Venezuela serving as an even bigger source of drugs and migration, the very outcome the White House is working to prevent.
In the end, María Corina Machado could prove to be right. But she is selling a best-case assumption. The U.S. shouldn’t buy it. Democracy after Maduro is possible but is hardly the only possible result — and it’s certainly not the most likely.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
In the early days of President Trump’s second term, the U.S. appeared keen to cooperate with Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader. Special envoy Ric Grenell met Maduro, working with him to coordinate deportation flights to Caracas, a prisoner exchange deal and an agreement allowing Chevron to drill Venezuelan oil.
Grenell told disappointed members of Venezuela’s opposition that Trump’s domestic goals took priority over efforts to promote democracy. “We’re not interested in regime change,” Grenell told the group, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
But Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of State, had a different vision.
In a parallel call with María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, two leaders of the opposition, Rubio affirmed U.S. support “for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela” and called González “the rightful president” of the beleaguered nation after Maduro rigged last year’s election in his favor.
Rubio, now also serving as national security advisor, has grown closer to Trump and crafted an aggressive new policy toward Maduro that has brought Venezuela and the United States to the brink of military confrontation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Trump during a roundtable meeting at the White House on Oct. 8, 2025.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
I think Venezuela is feeling the heat
— President Trump
Grenell has been sidelined, two sources told The Times, as the U.S. conducts an unprecedented campaign of deadly strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats — and builds up military assets in the Caribbean. Trump said Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in the South American nation, and that strikes on land targets could be next.
“I think Venezuela is feeling the heat,” he said.
The pressure campaign marks a major victory for Rubio, the son of Cuban emigres and an unexpected power player in the administration who has managed to sway top leaders of the isolationist MAGA movement to his lifelong effort to topple Latin America’s leftist authoritarians.
“It’s very clear that Rubio has won,” said James B. Story, who served as ambassador to Venezuela under President Biden. “The administration is applying military pressure in the hope that somebody inside of the regime renders Maduro to justice, either by exiling him, sending him to the United States or sending him to his maker.”
In a recent public message to Trump, Maduro acknowledged that Rubio is now driving White House policy: “You have to be careful because Marco Rubio wants your hands stained with blood, with South American blood, Caribbean blood, Venezuelan blood,” Maduro said.
As a senator from Florida, Rubio represented exiles from three leftist autocracies — Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — and for years he has made it his mission to weaken their governments. He says his family could not return to Cuba after Fidel Castro’s revolution seven decades ago. He has long maintained that eliminating Maduro would deal a fatal blow to Cuba, whose economy has been buoyed by billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions.
In 2019, Rubio pushed Trump to back Juan Guaidó, a Venezuelan opposition leader who sought unsuccessfully to topple Maduro.
Rubio later encouraged Trump to publicly support Machado, who was barred from the ballot in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, and who last week was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her pro-democracy efforts. González, who ran in Machado’s place, won the election, according to vote tallies gathered by the opposition, yet Maduro declared victory.
Rubio was convinced that only military might would bring change to Venezuela, which has been plunged into crisis under Maduro’s rule, with a quarter of the population fleeing poverty, violence and political repression.
But there was a hitch. Trump has repeatedly vowed to not intervene in the politics of other nations, telling a Middle Eastern audience in May that the U.S. “would no longer be giving you lectures on how to live.”
Denouncing decades of U.S. foreign policy, Trump complained that “the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.”
To counter that sentiment, Rubio painted Maduro in a new light that he hoped would spark interest from Trump, who has been fixated on combating immigration, illegal drugs and Latin American cartels since his first presidential campaign.
Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, right, and opposition leader María Corina Machado greet supporters during a campaign rally in Valencia before the country’s presidential election in 2024.
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
Going after Maduro, Rubio argued, was not about promoting democracy or a change of governments. It was striking a drug kingpin fueling crime in American streets, an epidemic of American overdoses, and a flood of illegal migration to America’s borders.
Rubio tied Maduro to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang whose members the secretary of State says are “worse than Al Qaeda.”
“Venezuela is governed by a narco-trafficking organization that has empowered itself as a nation state,” he said during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Meanwhile, prominent members of Venezuela’s opposition pushed the same message. “Maduro is the head of a narco-terrorist structure,” Machado told Fox News last month.
Security analysts and U.S. intelligence officials suggest that the links between Maduro and Tren de Aragua are overblown.
A declassified memo by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found no evidence of widespread cooperation between Maduro’s government and the gang. It also said Tren de Aragua does not pose a threat to the U.S.
The gang does not traffic fentanyl, and the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that just 8% of cocaine that reaches the U.S. passes through Venezuelan territory.
Still, Rubio’s strategy appears to have worked.
In July, Trump declared that Tren de Aragua was a terrorist group led by Maduro — and then ordered the Pentagon to use military force against cartels that the U.S. government had labeled terrorists.
Trump deployed thousands of U.S. troops and a small armada of ships and warplanes to the Caribbean and has ordered strikes on five boats off the coast of Venezuela, resulting in 24 deaths. The administration says the victims were “narco-terrorists” but has provided no evidence.
Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat who served as special envoy to Venezuela in Trump’s first term, said he believes the White House will carry out limited strikes in Venezuela.
“I think the next step is that they’re going to hit something in Venezuela — and I don’t mean boots on the ground. That’s not Trump,” Abrams said. “It’s a strike, and then it’s over. That’s very low risk to the United States.”
He continued: “Now, would it be nice if that kind of activity spurred a colonel to lead a coup? Yeah, it would be nice. But the administration is never going to say that.”
Even if Trump refrains from a ground invasion, there are major risks.
“If it’s a war, then what is the war’s aim? Is it to overthrow Maduro? Is it more than Maduro? Is it to get a democratically elected president and a democratic regime in power?” said John Yoo, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, who served as a top legal advisor to the George W. Bush administration. “The American people will want to know what’s the end state, what’s the goal of all of this.”
“Whenever you have two militaries bristling that close together, there could be real action,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House. “Trump is trying to do this on the cheap. He’s hoping maybe he won’t have to commit. But it’s a slippery slope. This could draw the United States into a war.”
Sabatini and others added that even if the U.S. pressure drives out Maduro, what follows is far from certain.
Venezuela is dominated by a patchwork of guerrilla and paramilitary groups that have enriched themselves with gold smuggling, drug trafficking and other illicit activities. None have incentive to lay down arms.
And the country’s opposition is far from unified.
Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Prize to Trump in a clear effort to gain his support, says she is prepared to govern Venezuela. But there are others — both in exile and in Maduro’s administration — who would like to lead the country.
Machado supporter Juan Fernandez said anything would be better than maintaining the status quo.
“Some say we’re not prepared, that a transition would cause instability,” he said. “How can Maduro be the secure choice when 8 million Venezuelans have left, when there is no gasoline, political persecution and rampant inflation?”
Fernandez praised Rubio for pushing the Venezuela issue toward “an inflection point.”
What a difference, he said, to have a decision-maker in the White House with family roots in another country long oppressed by an authoritarian regime.
“He perfectly understands our situation,” Fernandez said. “And now he has one of the highest positions in the United States.”
Linthicum reported from Mexico City, Wilner from Dallas and Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas contributed to this report.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on January 9, 2025. Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. (Photo by Juan BARRETO / AFP) (Photo by JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)
JUAN BARRETO
AFP via Getty Images
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people” and her “struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.
The decision places Machado—long the face of Venezuela’s democratic movement—among the ranks of global icons such as Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, leaders who have challenged autocratic rule at extraordinary personal cost.
“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace—a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” the committee said while announcing its decision. Machado “is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 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.”
The committee described Machado as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civic courage in Latin America in recent times,” emphasizing that she has shown how “the tools of democracy are also those of peace.” It credited her with uniting a once-fractured opposition around a common goal: free elections and representative government.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, holds his smartphone with a photo of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, on October 10, 2025. (Photo by Rodrigo Freitas / NTB / AFP) / Norway OUT (Photo by RODRIGO FREITAS/NTB/AFP via Getty Images) RODRIGO FREITAS NTB/AFP via Getty Images
The honor comes as Machado’s whereabouts remain in hiding in Venezuela for security reasons. Supporters say she continues to operate from within the Latin American nation despite arrest warrants and government accusations that she is conspiring to destabilize the country.
In an op-ed published last year in The Wall Street Journal, titled “I Can Prove That Maduro Got Trounced,” Machado revealed she was in hiding and feared for her life.
“I write this from hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen under the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro,” she wrote. “Mr. Maduro did not win the Venezuelan presidential election…. He lost by a landslide to Edmundo González, 67% to 30%. I know this to be true because I can prove it.”
Her column came just days after Venezuela’s electoral authority—controlled by Maduro loyalists—declared the president re-elected with 51% of the vote, triggering widespread protests across the country.
Machado and her team claim to possess receipts from more than 80% of the country’s polling stations, which they say confirmed that opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a wide margin. The regime has so far failed to release the official vote records.
As the disputed results reverberated across Venezuela, the Maduro government launched one of its most severe crackdowns in years. Human rights groups report that at least 2,000 people have been arrested, with dozens confirmed dead and hundreds injured in clashes with security forces.
Machado’s political journey has been marked by both perseverance and persecution. Once a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, she rose to prominence as a fierce critic of Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro.
Her popularity surged after she won the 2023 opposition primary with 93% of the vote, positioning her as the clear challenger to Maduro ahead of the 2024 presidential election. But the government swiftly disqualified her from holding public office, citing spurious administrative charges.
Unable to run, Machado threw her support behind González—a former diplomat—whose candidacy she helped unify across Venezuela’s fragmented opposition. Her endorsement proved decisive.
Polls and independent observers indicate that González likely won nearly 70% of the vote—a result recognized by the United States, the European Union, and multiple Latin American governments.
After the disputed election, González fled into exile, while Machado remained behind, going underground as the government rounded up opposition activists, journalists, and protesters.
Human rights groups estimate that more than 2,400 people have been arrested since July, with at least 28 confirmed dead during the demonstrations. Some victims, according to activists, were tortured to death in custody.
This week’s Nobel announcement caps a series of international tributes to Machado’s defiance and moral authority.
In April, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2025, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio contributing a glowing tribute, calling her “a beacon of hope.”
“A woman of faith who valiantly marches the streets of her homeland armed with the holy rosary and supported by countless courageous Venezuelans, Machado has stood firm against it all,” Rubio wrote. “Her principled leadership is making our region and our world a better place.”
Rubio described her as “the Venezuelan Iron Lady,” praising her resilience and patriotism.
Galardonado periodista con más de 30 años de experiencia, especializado en la cobertura de temas sobre Venezuela. Amante de la historia y la literatura.
