Maria Machado is the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Here’s what she wins

After much speculation, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been revealed as Maria Machado.

The Nobel committee said the Venezuelan politician and Opposition leader has been given the Peace Prize for her untiring efforts to restore democracy and her commitment to human rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in a statement said Machado won “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
The committee called Machado a “key unifying figure in a political Opposition that was once deeply divided – an Opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government.”

Venezuela has been ruled by President Nicolas Maduro since 2013. Maduro came to power after the death of Hugo Chavez, who was his mentor.

The development comes as a bitter disappointment to US President Donald Trump, who has been campaigning for the honour and had falsely claimed to have put an end to several wars, including the India–Pakistan conflict.

Machado is the first Venezuelan to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the sixth from Latin America.

But who is Machado, also known as the ‘Venezuelan Iron Lady’? What does she win?

Let’s take a closer look:

Early years

Machado, 58, is an industrial engineer, politician and former member of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Machado was born in Caracas on 7 October 1967 into an affluent family. Her father, Henrique Machado Zuloaga, who died in 2023, was a businessman in Venezuela’s steel industry. Her mother is a psychologist.

Machado attended the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas. She said she had her ‘awakening’ about the stark divide in Venezuela between the rich and the poor while teaching children at a makeshift school in the La Pradera barrio. Machado studied industrial engineering and then went to work at her father’s steel firm.

Machado has said she decided to join politics after Chavez began tightening his reins over Venezuela and she witnessed the growing chaos and instability. Machado, in 2009, graduated from Yale University’s Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Programme. The next year, she ran for political office. She also co-founded Súmate (Join In), an electoral watchdog group. In 2002, she was among those pushing to have Chavez recalled in a referendum.

In 2010, Machado was among the over five dozen Opposition members who were elected to the National Assembly. She was expelled from Parliament for calling out human rights violations in Venezuela.

Opposition to Maduro

In 2023, she won the primary with 92 per cent of the vote and was all set to face the incumbent Maduro. However, Machado was disqualified from running as Maduro’s opponent in 2024. Regardless, Machado then threw her support to Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – a little-known former ambassador and political novice.

Machado’s presence on the campaign trail seemed to inspire millions , drawing large crowds everywhere she went. Though Maduro won the 2024 polls with 51 per cent of the vote, the Opposition claimed that the election was rigged and that the strongman had received just 30 per cent of the vote. The Maduro regime responded by brutally cracking down on dissent, according to Human Rights Watch.

A number of Venezuela’s neighbours condemned the crackdown on protesters and demanded proof of the results. The United States and European Parliament have recognised Urrutia, who fled to Spain, as the rightful president of Venezuela.

But Machado refuses to leave Venezuela. This despite her husband, their children, her aged mother and sisters all doing so. She is currently living in hiding from authorities. She has made just two public appearances since – at a rally a month after the election and on 9 January, the day before Maduro was inaugurated as president.

Some have hailed her as “la libertadora”, a reference to Venezuela’s hero Simon “The Liberator” Bolivar. In July, on the anniversary of Maduro’s controversial re-election, Machado urged the public to resist against the regime. There is chatter online that Machado is sheltering in the US embassy.

This isn’t the first high-profile prize Machado has won. She was awarded the Liberal International Freedom Prize in 2019, listed among BBC’s 100 Most Influential Women in 2018, won the Charles T. Manatt Prize in 2014, was awarded the Libertad Cortes de Cádiz in 2015. Machado and Urrutia in October jointly won the the European Union’s top human rights prize. Machado was included in Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in April.

What does she win?

Machado will now receive a medal made of 18-carat gold weighing 196 grams. Designed by Gustav Vigeland, the medal previously weighed 192 grams and comprised 23-carat gold. On the face of the medal is the face of Alfred Nobel – founder of the Nobel Prize. However, Nobel is framed slightly differently on the Peace Prize than on the other medals.

The inscription, however, remains the same – Pro pace et fraternitate gentium (For the peace and brotherhood of men). The other side of the medal comprises three men forming a fraternal bond. It also includes “Prix Nobel de la Paix”, the year, and the name of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The medals have been manufactured by the Mint of Norway since 2012. Machado will also receive $1.17 million (Rs 10.3 crore) and a diploma.

Nobel committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes explained why Machado was picked.

“I think this committee has seen (every) type of campaign (and) media attention. We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people saying what, for them, leads to peace,” Frydnes said.

“But this committee sits in a room with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So, we base only our decision on the work and will of Alfred Nobel.”

“Oh my God … I have no words,” Machado told Kristian Berg Harpviken, the secretary of the body, in a phone call which the committee posted on social media.

“I don’t deserve this,” Machado added.

But Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, begged to differ.

“In the past year, Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” Frydnes pointed out. He added that she remained in Venezuela despite a significant threat to her life, which has inspired millions.

“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” Frydnes added. He said the committee was able to reach Machado just before the announcement and “it came as a surprise.”

It remains unclear whether Machado can attend the award ceremony in Oslo on 10 December. Should she be unable to attend, she would join the list of Peace Prize laureates prevented from doing so in the award’s 124-year history, including Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975, Poland’s Lech Wałęsa in 1983 and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991. Machado becomes the 20th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, of the 112 individuals who have been honoured.

The peace prize is the only one of the annual Nobel prizes to be awarded in Oslo, Norway. Four of the other prizes have already been awarded in the Swedish capital, Stockholm this week — in medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The winner of the prize in economics will be announced on Monday.

With inputs from agencies