María Corina Machado’s Daughter Ana Corina Sosa Receives the Nobel Peace Prize Dedicated to all Venezuelans
María Corina Machado is in Oslo but did not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony, according to the Nobel Institute. In Oslo Norway, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was unable to attend the ceremony. Her daughter Ana Corina Sosa accepted the award on her behalf. Ana described her mother’s struggle for democracy in Venezuela. This is a story in progress. Check back throughout the day for updates.
The Venezuelan Opposition Emphasizes that the Nobel Prize Awarded to Machado Recognizes Those Who Have Fallen and Been Persecuted
Venezuela’s largest opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), said Wednesday that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to leader María Corina Machado is also a “recognition of every victim, those who have fallen, those who are persecuted, and every human rights defender” in the South American country. In a message posted on its X account, PUD celebrated Machado’s Nobel Prize, which it also considered recognition “of the civic commitment of millions of Venezuelans who have peacefully defended their right to live in freedom and dignity.” “This honor reaffirms the value of a Venezuela that perseveres and paves democratic paths. May this day inspire everyone to continue striving for the restoration of democracy in our country.
Today the fight for the freedom of political prisoners is even more crucial,” the opposition coalition stated. The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, urged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday to accept the 2024 election results and resign from his post in order to lay the foundations for a “democracy” in the country. “She must accept the election results and resign from her post. She must lay the groundwork for a peaceful transition to democracy, because that is the will of the Venezuelan people. María Corina Machado and the Venezuelan opposition have lit a flame that no torture, no lies, and no fear can extinguish,” he said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
For her part, Machado dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to all the people of Venezuela and to the “heroes” who fight for the “freedom” of that country, as well as to “the world leaders” who supported her, in a speech read by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, who accepted the award on her behalf in Oslo. The opposition leader did not attend the ceremony, but her daughter confirmed that in “a few hours” she will be able to hug her mother in the Norwegian capital and that the opposition leader intends to return to Venezuela “very soon”.
The event was attended by Venezuelan opposition leader and Machado ally Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims the presidency of his country, asserting that he was elected in the 2024 presidential elections, despite the fact that the electoral body, controlled by rectors aligned with Chavismo, proclaimed Maduro’s re-election, a result that has not been recognized by several countries. Machado was the seventh Latin American personality to receive the award. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, based in Oslo, announced in October that she was selected “for her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
The Nobel Committee Urges Maduro to Resign and Accept the ‘Will’ of the Venezuelan People
The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, urged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday to accept the 2024 election results and resign from his post in order to lay the foundations for a “democracy” in the country, as that is the will of the Venezuelan people. “He must accept the election results and resign from his post. He must lay the groundwork for a peaceful transition to democracy, because that is the will of the Venezuelan people. María Corina Machado and the Venezuelan opposition have lit a flame that no torture, no lies, and no fear can extinguish,” he said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
At the ceremony, which the Venezuelan opposition leader did not arrive on time to, but whose speech will be read by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, Frydes accused Maduro of turning Venezuela “into a brutal and authoritarian state, mired in a deep humanitarian and economic crisis” while a “small elite at the top, protected by power, weapons and impunity, enriches itself.” The head of the Nobel Peace Committee described the emigration of Venezuelans in recent years, which the institution estimates at more than 8 million people, or a quarter of the population, as “one of the world’s biggest refugee crises.”
Frydnes attacked the Caracas government for establishing “a regime that silences, harasses and systematically attacks the opposition.” “While we sit here in Oslo City Hall, innocent people are locked in dark cells in Venezuela. They cannot hear today’s speeches, only the screams of prisoners being tortured,” he said. He described as “another victim of the regime” the recent death, while in the custody of the Venezuelan State, of the former governor of Nueva Esparta (insular) Alfredo Díaz at the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), known as El Helicoide, “the largest torture chamber in Latin America”.
