Machado deserves the Nobel

I was fourteen when I clambered onto a boulder along Caracas’s Francisco Fajardo highway – what people called Piedra de la Libertad, the Liberty Rock – and spoke out about a government that had just ignored a referendum. “Tyranny” was more than a buzzword. To my astonishment, a woman I didn’t yet know – María Corina – helped me climb it. With her megaphone, I spoke of unifying, as a sea of flags from rival parties fluttered before me.

Many dismissed her then. A woman who once called Chávez a “thief” to his face – too brash, too ideological, too direct for the choreography of Venezuelan politics. The old hands said she could never reach the people; she lacked the soothing tones, the feigned humility, the convenient ambiguity that defined our politicians. As a young member in the National Assembly, she was sidelined. She was too elegant, too upper-class – a sifrina, as Caracas gossips liked to say, the Venezuelan equivalent of a Valley girl. How could a man from the hills of Petare ever vote for her? She doesn’t have “the balls,” they said.

They were wrong.

Today, history has delivered yet another act of vindication. The Nobel Committee has awarded María Corina Machado the Nobel Peace Prize, citing her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Amid threats, bans,and intimidation, she stayed – refusing exile, unlike so many of the men once praised for having “the balls.” Though barred from appearing on the ballot, she led her movement to victory through Edmundo González, winning more than seventy percent of the vote. Now in hiding, she continues to labor, with unbroken discipline, toward a peaceful transfer of power.

Some skeptics call her win puzzling, particularly in a moment when the world is watching Trump mediate a ceasefire in the Middle East. They argue: surely, stabilizing a brutal conflict warrants a Nobel more than the struggle of a single nation. These are understandable complaints – and one sure hopes that when peace materializes, Trump will get his Nobel. Yet to dismiss Machado’s recognition is wrong-headed. Plus, attempts to make Machado appear as a figure that opposes Trump is plainly ridiculous – she even dedicated her prize “to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause.” She knows Trump deserves his Nobel too.

Attack the prize itself if you wish. After all, Senator Mike Lee isn’t wrong when he remarks that “apparently the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t about delivering peace anymore.” Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will defined the award as recognition for those who have accomplished “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

By that reading, few modern laureates qualify. Yet the committee long ago widened its understanding of peace to include those who wage domestic campaigns rather than diplomatic ones. Poland’s Lech Wałęsa, America’s Martin Luther King Jr., Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi – their prizes honored movements, not treaties; conviction, not realpolitik.

Criticizing the prize itself has its logic – a logic I share. What makes little sense is dismissing María Corina Machado’s fight. Hers, too, is a movement – civil, disciplined and rooted in the idea that peace is not merely the end of conflict, but the beginning of freedom.

What Machado has done is durable: she has carved out a moral pole in a country where everything else has crumbled. She is the first Venezuelan opposition leader to cement a position – not in charisma, but in principle. Though barred from contesting in 2024, it was her movement that outpaced Chavismo in hearts and minds. She is the first to deliver a genuine, stark ideological, moral and political alternative that has beaten Chavismo in recognition – even if the seizure of power remains pending.

As she hides in an undisclosed location within Venezuela, separated from her family, Machado’s resolve stands in sharp contrast to the opposition figures who sought safety abroad. Juan Guaidó and others, once luminous names, now flicker dimly from foreign capitals. Machado stayed.

Her struggle has always been peaceful. She called for marches and assemblies, even when many Venezuelans, understandably, chafed at the limits of nonviolence. And she did so without fear – unlike former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who bent under the regime’s threats and now serves as little more than a decoration in the architecture of controlled opposition. If that is not Nobel-deserving, with the modern recipients in mind, then one wonders: what is?

When she handed me the megaphone more than a decade ago, she offered belief. I knew then that the movement she would lead would become a vessel for her country’s conscience. She aimed for a moral revolution at a time when climbing the political ladder rewarded conformity and orthodoxy. Many of those who now praise her – much like Trump – once ridiculed her.

Her prize is not a consolation; it is a spotlight – and it is deserved. Her moral clarity, her endurance, her refusal to yield to bitterness are rare forms of courage in an age addicted to cynicism. Let us be careful not to undermine Machado’s merit. Her victory need not diminish Trump’s successes. They both deserve their Nobels.