Maria Corina Machado Wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for Defending Democracy

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Maria Corina Machado for her unwavering fight to restore democracy and protect human rights in Venezuela.

Maria is the founder of Súmate and a unifying figure in Venezuela’s opposition. She has spent over two decades advocating for free elections, human rights, and judicial independence, choosing, as she said, “ballots over bullets.”

During the 2024 presidential election, after being barred from running, Machado supported opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and helped mobilize hundreds of thousands of volunteers to monitor polling stations and document vote counts despite threats and repression.

Maria faced threats to her life and lived in hiding, yet Machado stayed in Venezuela, inspiring millions. As the Nobel Committee wrote on X: “Freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended – with words, with courage and with determination.”