María Corina Machado

María Corina Machado Parisca (born 7 October 1967) is a Venezuelan politician and industrial engineer. She was a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela from 2011 to 2014. She is known as an opposition politician and critic of the Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro presidencies.

Machado was the founder and former leader of the Venezuelan volunteer civil organization Súmate. In 2018, she was listed as one of the women in the BBC series 100 Women. She unsuccessfully ran for President of Venezuela in 2012 and 2024. 

She supported an American military intervention to remove the Maduro government. She openly thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for the 2026 U.S. strikes on Venezuela that removed Maduro from power.

In 2025, Machado won 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 for dictatorship to democracy".Nobel Peace Prize 2025

Early political career
During her early political career, Machado was a critic of President Hugo Chávez. 

Machado was a candidate in the 2012 presidential election but lost the opposition primary election to Henrique Capriles. During the 2014 Venezuelan protests, she was one of the lead figures in organizing protests against the Maduro government. 

2024 presidential election
She was a pre-candidate for Vente Venezuela in the primary elections of the Unitary Platform of 2023, although on 30 June 2023 she was disqualified for fifteen years from running for office. Her disqualification was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela in January 2024. 

After winning the primary elections with 92% of the votes, Machado was named the opposition candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, though she was replaced by Corina Yoris on 22 March 2024. Yoris was prevented from registering as a candidate and was temporarily replaced by Edmundo González Urrutia.

In August 2024, Machado announced that she had gone into hiding because of fears for her life and freedom under the authoritarian Maduro regime.

2025 Nobel Peace Prize
In October 2025, Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy".

In December 2025, Machado escaped from Venezuela. She had been in hiding in the Caracas area. She and two other people left Caracas on December 8. In an open boat, they traveled to a fishing village on the coast of an island controlled by the Netherlands, Curaçao. The boat ride took some hours.

From Curaçao she took a flight to a naval base in Maine, United States. She then traveled to Europe. She was scheduled to get the Nobel Peace Prize during a ceremony on December 11, however she arrived later and her daughter accepted her prize on Machado's behalf. Machado arrived to Oslo the following day.

In January 2026, Machado offered to give her prize to the President of the United States Donald Trump for the military intervention in Venezuela since Trump openly spoke about wanting to win the Nobel Prize the year before. The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute, in response, said that the prize cannot be transferred to another person. On 15 January, Machado gave her medal to Trump during a private meeting at the White House to thank him for removing Nicolás Maduro from power. Trump accepted the prize, but as of 16 January, has not said what he plans to do with it. The Nobel Committee said again that while ownership of the physical award can change, the title does not; meaning Trump is not known a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

References

Other websites

Official Súmate website
Maria Corina Machado's Flickr photostream
2010 Election website

Category:1967 births
Category:Living people
Category:Venezuelan politicians
Category:People from Caracas
Category:Nobel Peace Prize winners