How Legitimate is Your Peace? An Analysis of María Corina Machado's 2025 Nobel Prize Win

How legitimate is your peace? An analysis of María Corina Machado's 2025 Nobel Prize win 

In the lead-up to the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize announcement, most predictions pointed to a non-controversial winner (G1, 2025). Instead, the prize went to María Corina Machado, one of the leading figures in the Venezuelan opposition to President Nicolás Maduro. She has been praised for her efforts in promoting fairer and more transparent elections in the country (Elmehed, 2025). She has also pledged 1.7 trillion dollars of Venezuela's most profitable resource assets, oil, natural gas, and gold, to American corporations (Lichtenberg, 2025). In that sense, Machado´s win sparked immediate backlash in the international community, particularly after she gifted her Nobel medal to President Donald Trump (Matza, 2026). This occurred only days after a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela that, in complete violation of international law, resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro (Matza, 2026). In this context, the essay will assess María Corina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize win, considering how internationally honoring such a figure created legitimacy for a particular idea of peace for Venezuela and beyond. 

Why her?

The Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Machado for “keeping the flame of democracy burning amidst growing darkness”, referring to her efforts in promoting free and fair elections in Venezuela through the organization Súmate and the Soy Venezuela alliance (Phillips, 2025). The initiatives aimed to mobilize an opposition against Maduro and collect independent documentation on elections outside state-controlled channels. Such efforts resonate with concerns raised by international organizations such as the European Union (EU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) regarding the credibility and transparency of Venezuelan elections (Reuters, 2024). Concerns came into particular focus during the 2024 presidential elections, when Machado attempted to run as the main opposition candidate but was barred under vague accusations of fraud by the Supreme Court, an institution widely known for its political loyalty to Maduro (Wolf, 2025). Machado subsequently backed diplomat González Urrutia's candidacy, and although the lack of objective data collection skews Venezuela’s opinion polls, surveys suggested that the opposition candidate had 59.68% of the voting intention (Amaya et al., 2024). Nevertheless, the election ended with the contested re-election of Nicólas Maduro. 

Despite mounting legitimacy concerns, Maduro had remained in power for over a decade until his capture by the U.S. forces in early January 2026. Since 2013, he had ruled Venezuela with the support of the country´s military, enabling him to suppress most of the countervailing efforts by the opposition (Watanabe, 2024). He had also enjoyed a near monopoly on the media and the aforementioned influence on the judiciary, which facilitated the systematic persecution of his political enemies (Buschschlüter, 2024). Reports by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) revealed multiple cases of arbitrary detentions of individuals perceived, although not proven, to be threats to the government, which included several human rights activists and journalists (OHCHR, 2025). 

Maduro´s authoritarian rule is, therefore, undeniable. Thus, in this context, opposition efforts are not, in themselves, entirely absurd. Yet, the same cannot be said for Machado´s plan for Venezuela. 

Why not her?

Machado´s rise has been largely facilitated by Western political elites, who have framed her as a freedom fighter. Yet, a closer examination of her political trajectory does not seem to show a desire for a free Venezuela, at least not in any substantial way. 

In her attempts to overthrow Maduro, Machado has long relied on strategies aimed at generating enough political and economic chaos to undermine the rule of law in the country. She was a key figure in the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, which sought the dissolution of Venezuela´s democratically elected National Assembly, Supreme Court, and constitution (Coelho, 2025). She has also repeatedly called for military intervention in Venezuela, notably in 2014 to the U.S. Congress and in 2018 to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging them to use their “strength to dismantle the criminal Venezuelan regime” (Cáceres, 2025). Now, days after the latest U.S. attack on the country, Machado chose to gift her Nobel medal, and with that, symbolically, the prize itself, to President Donald Trump for “his commitment to Venezuela´s freedom” (Matza, 2026). This gesture follows her earlier dedication of the prize to the “suffering people of Venezuela” (Phillips, 2025). These, however, are fundamentally irreconcilable. 

Shortly after Machado´s Nobel win, Trump approved CIA operations to deploy military troops in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela to strike alleged drug boats (Wolf, 2025). The operations did not have UN authorization and resulted in over 80 deaths (Wolf, 2025). Trump then declared Venezuela´s airspace “closed”, a move international law experts noted had preceded past US military interventions, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Harper, 2025). Less than a month later, on January 3rd, 2026, the U.S. invaded Venezuela (Matza, 2026). When asked what she thought of Trump´s actions, Machado was brief but very quick to reply that he was “absolutely correct” (Leonard, 2025).

On the other hand, she has remained silent on Trump´s aggressive deportation policies, which saw thousands of Venezuelan migrants sent to a high-security prison in El Salvador (Kurmanaev, 2025). She has, instead, consistently praised the US´s economic sanctions on Venezuela, despite overwhelming evidence that they have significantly reduced the purchasing power of most Venezuelans and spiked inflation all over the country (Ellner, 2025). Therefore, one can either fight for the “suffering people of Venezuela” or dedicate their Global Peace Prize to Donald Trump, but the two simply cannot be true at the same time.  

Foreign military interventions always replicate vertical global power dynamics, implying a logic where certain states are legitimate to impose their political will on others (Rock, 2025). Even when these are accompanied by promises of (re) establishment of democracy and the rule of law, such interventions disregard the simplest of ideas of emancipation as grounded in the people´s self-determination (Rock, 2025). Independent inquiries before 2026 show that 70% of Venezuelans are against armed intervention by foreign powers to lead political change (Kurmanaev, 2025). In that sense, an intervention supposedly aimed at establishing democracy in a country filled with valuable natural resources, such as Venezuela, might hint at motivations far removed from democratic concerns (Tirado, 2025).

The Politics of Oil

Crucially, Venezuela, as the largest proven oil reserve in the world, holds an estimated 303 billion barrels of oil (Mitchell and Sherman, 2026). In recent years, Maduro has worked to remove Venezuelan oil from the dollar market, as well as strengthen alliances with the BRICS countries (Martins and Strano, 2024). Parallel to this, Machado has publicly promised that if President Trump helped her overthrow Maduro, she would sever Venezuela´s ties with China, Russia, and Iran, while also assisting Washington´s efforts in toppling the governments in Nicaragua and Cuba (Lucas, 2025). Combined with the U.S.'s escalating tariff trade war, which imposed 50 percent tariffs on India and Brazil, and escalating pressure on Russia and China, this not only indicates a broader targeting of the BRICS as a bloc (an alliance that holds 45% of the world´s population and produces 30% of global oil), but of any state that threatens American political and economic dominance (Patrick, et al, 2025). In this light, the prevalent idea of “democratizing” Venezuela entails removing an administration that very outspokenly defended the statization of oil and giving power, instead, to neoliberal actors such as Machado. She has made no secret of her desire to massively privatize Venezuela and auction off the country´s oil and gas, centering her campaign on opening the country for foreign investment (Lichtenberg, 2025). Experts have assessed that her privatization plans sound similar to the ones implemented during Latin America´s dictatorship wave in the 1980s, policies that pushed the region to a “neoliberal misery” (Ellner, 2025). And, as one of Machado´s campaign members stated, “If anyone had doubts about our strategy, Maria Corina´s Nobel Win ratifies that we are going through the right path.” (Kurmanaev, 2025). In this light, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize may be interpreted as having conferred legitimacy on Machado´s vision of peace for Venezuela, one that consisted of appeals for foreign intervention in the country, and one that, less than three months after the award was announced, ended up coming to fruition. 

In the end, while the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and capture of Maduro ensured an objective freedom from his rule, it has done little to guarantee long-term stability or democratic health for the country. Venezuela is now governed by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who has vowed her intentions not to let the country become a “colony of an empire” (Rhoden-Paul and Moench, 2026). Yet, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has already warned that if the new administration fails to make “the right decisions”, further military action may follow (Rhoden-Paul and Moench, 2026). Trump´s invasion of Venezuela has, therefore, left the country in a state of profound uncertainty. It represents not only a blatant violation of international law but also the accession of a government whose whole existence depends on, and that responds to, not the will of the people, but foreign political and economic interests. This is a scenario that Latin American history has already shown to be nothing but bleak.  

Prized Peace 

Naturally, it may be argued that the Nobel Committee simply awarded Machado for her efforts to improve electoral transparency in Venezuela, contributions that should not go unmentioned. However, for a prize of such international significance that is awarded only to one individual each year for “best promoting peace within and among countries”, it seems inadequate, to say the least, to award it to a person like Machado (AFP, 2025). This is precisely because the Nobel is not simply a moral prize, but it is also inherently political (Amorim, 2025). By receiving it, the winner not only gains a reward but also an international platform. And with Machado´s win, the prize projected a specific vision for what “peace” should mean in Venezuela and beyond. Is this, then, what we consider legitimate peace to look like?