Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader slated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, will not attend today’s ceremony in Oslo, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said, adding that her current whereabouts are unknown.
The event at Oslo City Hall is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. local time (12 p.m. Irish time) in the presence of Norway’s King Harald and Queen Sonja, along with several Latin American leaders, including Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa.
- Advertisement -
Machado had been due to accept the award in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in Venezuela and after spending more than a year in hiding. The ban underscored her fraught relationship with President Nicolas Maduro’s government and the risks associated with her public appearances at home and abroad.
Asked where Machado was ahead of the ceremony, the institute’s director responded, “I don’t know.” The Nobel program will proceed as planned.
When a laureate cannot be present in Oslo, a close family member usually receives the medal and diploma and delivers the Nobel lecture on the laureate’s behalf. In this case, Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, will step in, the institute said.
Machado’s absence adds a dramatic layer to a ceremony that typically functions as a rare moment of global consensus around peace and human rights. Her profile as a central figure in Venezuela’s opposition movement has made her both a symbol of resistance for supporters and a target for authorities in Caracas.
When Machado was named the peace prize laureate in October, she dedicated the honor in part to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed he deserved the award himself. The dedication drew swift political reactions in Latin America and Washington and layered domestic Venezuelan politics onto the international platform provided by the Nobel.
Maduro, in power since 2013, has long accused Trump of seeking to overthrow his government to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. He has insisted that Venezuelan citizens and the armed forces would resist any such attempt, framing external pressure as a direct threat to national sovereignty.
The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, held annually in Oslo, culminates with the laureate’s lecture—a statement of principles and priorities that often becomes the defining text of a winner’s public legacy. With Machado absent and her daughter set to speak, attention is likely to focus on whether the address amplifies Machado’s calls for political change in Venezuela and on how explicitly it confronts the risks facing dissidents in the country.
The optics in Oslo—a Nobel medal accepted by a family member while the laureate’s location remains undisclosed—highlight the precarious realities facing opposition figures in Venezuela and the diplomatic sensitivities for leaders gathered in the Norwegian capital. The audience includes Milei and Noboa, whose presence underscores Latin America’s competing views on rights, stability and intervention in the region.
Organizers did not indicate when Machado might resurface publicly or whether her circumstances could change in the near term. For now, the ceremony will proceed without her, maintaining Nobel protocol while reflecting the increasingly complex interplay between international recognition and political pressure at home.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
