Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize despite intense Donald Trump campaign

4 hours ago 2

London: Venezuelan peace campaigner Maria Corina Machado has won the Nobel Peace Prize after an intense lobbying campaign to name US President Donald Trump this year’s winner because of his efforts to secure a lasting peace in Gaza.

Trump has openly sought the prize this year, saying repeatedly that he should win it but that the awards committee might not give it to him.

Maria Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado is currently in hiding in Venezuela after campaigning for free and fair elections for more than two decades, and she has refused to leave the country even as eight million of her fellow citizens have fled autocratic rule.

Born in 1967, she trained in engineering and finance before entering politics in 2002 and gained support as an opposition candidate for the presidency last year. The government barred her from running, and in August last year she went into hiding.

Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes praised her as a woman who kept the “flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness” in her country and around the world.

“Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Donald Trump to be given the award.

“Ms Machado has been a key unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided, an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free election and representative government.”

Asked on Thursday about his chances of winning the prize, Trump said he had ended eight wars including the conflict in Gaza but did not do so to win the award.

“They’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine,” he said of the Nobel Committee.

“I know this: I didn’t do it for that, I did it because I saved a lot of lives.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office backed Trump for the award on social media one day before the decision, saying: “Give Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize – he deserves it!”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi also said Trump “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize” for the peace deal, according to a statement reported by news service Anadolu Agency.

In August, Trump made a surprise phone call to Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, a former NATO secretary-general, and said he wanted the prize.

Critics have disputed his claims about ending eight wars, noting, for instance, that war continues between Congo and Rwanda despite his claims about peace. India does not accept that Trump ended its recent conflict with Pakistan. However, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev jointly endorsed Trump for the prize in August for his role in ending their conflict.

Maria Corina Machado holds up tally sheets during a protest against the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro.

While the award is decided by an independent committee of five at Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, the members are elected by the Norwegian parliament and are connected by that process to the nation’s political leaders.

Frydnes, the current chair of the Nobel Committee, is a human rights advocate who has worked with Medecins Sans Frontieres – also known as Doctors without Borders – and other non-government groups.

Last year’s award went to Nihon Hidankyo, a group of survivors of the nuclear bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The previous winners were Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian champion of equality and women’s rights and Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate from Belarus. In 2021, it went to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia.

Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters at a protest against President Nicolás Maduro in Caraca.

Wealthy Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who funded the prize, stipulated in his will that it should go to the person “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

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