By Christian Edwards, Char Reck, CNN

(CNN) — María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader driven into hiding since a disputed election last year, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

Machado received the accolade for tirelessly promoting democratic rights in Venezuela and “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Friday, announcing the award at a ceremony in Oslo.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, in 1967, Machado trained as an industrial engineer before entering politics. In 2002, she founded Súmate, a volunteer group that promotes political rights and monitors elections.

Machado has described her life’s work as promoting “ballots over bullets.” The Nobel committee lauded her as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”

“Oh my god… I have no words,” Machado said after being woken in the middle of the night by a phone call from the committee to tell her she had won the prize. “This is a movement, this is an achievement of a whole society,” she added. “I am just one person. I certainly do not deserve this.”

Although the White House criticized the committee for overlooking the peacemaking efforts of Donald Trump – who has long publicly coveted the prize – the US president praised Machado in January for “peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people.”

Machado’s work has become more difficult over time. Freedom House, a monitoring group, says Venezuela’s democratic institutions have deteriorated since 1999 and “have grown sharply worse in recent years” due to a harsh crackdown by the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Machado attempted to run against Maduro in the 2024 presidential election, but her candidacy was voided by the regime. She then switched her support to the party of Edmundo González Urrutia, and worked to mobilize citizens and train election observers to try to ensure the vote was free and fair.

Both Maduro and González claimed victory after the vote. When Venezuela’s government-aligned electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner, with 51.95% of the vote, opposition forces cried foul. Analysts reported “suspicious” data patterns in the reported results. One expert said there was about a “one in 100 million chance that this particular pattern will occur by chance.”

After the election, Machado claimed she could prove that Maduro had lost “in a landslide to Edmundo, 67% to 30%.” Writing in the Wall Street Journal, she said her group had “receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the nation’s polling stations.”

The Nobel committee praised Machado on Friday for making sure “the final tallies were documented before the regime could destroy the ballots and lie about the outcome.” At the time, the Biden administration also concurred that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Maduro lost the vote.

After declaring victory, the Maduro government moved to crack down on dissent. Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, said this year that the government has “killed, tortured, detained, and forcefully disappeared people seeking democratic change.”

As a result, Machado has lived in hiding in Venezuela since last year, resurfacing briefly during protests in January. Speaking to CNN from an unknown location in August 2024, Machado said the regime had “lost total touch with reality and lost its social base,” allowing her movement – with no resources, and operating under strict censorship – to mobilize “millions of Venezuelans” committed to democracy.

“Everyone in Venezuela is afraid of losing our freedom or even our lives,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “But above all we are committed to make the truth prevail… and get a transition to democracy peacefully.”

Democracy a ‘precondition’ for peace

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year to the individual or organization which has done the most to satisfy the terms set out in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist whose fortune established the Nobel Prizes.

The will says the award will be given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said Machado had satisfied the full criteria.

“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,” he said Friday.

In selecting Machado as this year’s laureate, the committee signaled its concerns about the health of democracy worldwide, according to Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

“The Nobel Committee clearly chose to highlight democracy as a priority area, underscoring that this award comes at a time of global backsliding of democratic values and norms,” Haggag told CNN.

Nina Græger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said Machado’s award is “above all, a prize for democracy.”

“Research shows that democracy is an important precondition for peace. At a moment when authoritarianism is on the rise across the world, this award highlights the courage of those who defend freedom with ballots, not bullets,” she told CNN.

Analysts say the committee often uses the prize to send a message about areas of concern over the past year. The 2024 prize went to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors, at a time when the world was once again confronting the specter of nuclear weapons, amid Russia’s threats during its war in Ukraine.

‘Politics over peace’

Friday’s award came after a months-long campaign of self-promotion by US President Donald Trump, who stressed repeatedly that he believed he deserved the prize for ending “unsolvable” wars during his second term.

Although Trump scored a major diplomatic victory this week in announcing the first phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, this likely came too late to influence the Nobel commitee. Nominations for this year’s prize closed on January 31, when Trump had only been in office for 11 days.

The White House nonetheless criticized the committee for snubbing Trump.
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives,” said communications director Steven Cheung. “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”

The prize also comes at a time of rising antagonism between the United States and Venezuela, with the US military carrying out lethal strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, which the Trump administration has deemed to be “narco-trafficking” vessels.

The US has also deployed at least seven warships to the southern Caribbean and announced a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest. The Venezuelan president who has faced formal drug trafficking charges from the Justice Department since 2020.

The peace prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) and will be formally presented at a ceremony in Oslo in December.

Frydnes, the chair of the committee, could not confirm whether Machado will be able to attend.

“It’s a question of security. It’s too early to say. We always hope to have the laureate with us in Oslo, but this is a serious security situation which needs to be handled first,” Frydnes said.