OSLO, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for promoting democratic rights in her country and her struggle to achieve a transition to democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
“When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,” it said in its citation.
The committee chose to focus on Venezuela at this time, in a year dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated public statements that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ahead of the announcement, experts on the award had said Trump would not win it as he is dismantling the international world order the Nobel committee cherishes.
COMMENT:
Machado is:
- a brown-skinned female
- fighting against a dictatorial regime
- now in hiding for her life
This year’s award committee has been under particular scrutiny after an intense public and private campaign by Donald Trump, who has been openly envious that four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, received the award.
The committee commended Machado as a “brave and committed champion of peace” who “keeps the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness”.
Considering the reasons given for Macahdo’s win, this likely means that Trump will never get this prize.
MORE COMMENT
Source: MEDIAite
Oct 10th, 2025, 5:53 am
The chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, pushed back against suggestions that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize decision was made to spite President Donald Trump’s public campaign for the award. Frydnes was asked directly just moments after he announced this year’s prize would go to Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado, whether Trump’s repeated insistence that he “deserves” the prize had affected deliberations.
A reporter in the room asked: “During the past months, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and he’d like to have it. He even said it would be an insult to the United States if he doesn’t get it. What [do you], as chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, think of this? And how has this campaign-like activity by the president and his supporters, domestically and internationally, affected the deliberation and thinking in the committee?”
He replied: “In the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize, I think this committee has seen many types of campaign, media attention. We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what, for them, leads to peace. This committee sits in a room filled 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 the will of Alfred Nobel.”
The remarks came moments after Machado was awarded the 2025 Peace Prize. Frydnes called her a “brave and committed champion of peace” who “keeps the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness.”
This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. And that, folks, is exactly why Trump did not and will never be awarded a Nobel Prize for anything.