Madrid/The joy this Friday of the Venezuelan oppositionthe Norwegian Committee itself and numerous democratic countries for the award of the prize Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado It contrasts with the displeasure of the US Administration for not having received it from Donald Trump, the indignation in the press of the Cuban regime, and the silence of some governments, such as that of Venezuela.
“Nobel Peace Academy joins the anti-Venezuelan strategy and rewards María Corina Machado,” headlines Cubadebate, many hours after hearing the news and not even with its own text, since it is the reproduction of a note published in Almayadeen.
The article reproaches the Nobel committee for having awarded the Venezuelan “without taking into account her political background, her links with sectors of the fascist extreme right, her promotion of sanctions against the Venezuelan people and her support for foreign pressure on Venezuela.”
He reproaches the “leader” – thus, with ironic quotes – for the “attempts to destabilize and calls to ignore electoral results”
Furthermore, he reproaches the “leader” – thus, with ironic quotes – for his support of the “economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on his country” and the “attempts to destabilize and calls to ignore electoral results.”
Regarding these elections, whose results have been contested by independent observers and a large part of the international community, he says Cubadebate: “The opposition he leads then claimed victory in the 2024 elections, held with the candidacy of his puppet, Edmundo González Urrutia, today exiled in Spain after an arrest warrant was issued against him.”
For his part, the advisor to the president of the United States and director of White House Communications, Steven Cheung, accused the Nobel committee this Friday of putting “politics before peace.”
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” Cheung added in a tweet.
According to the agency BloombergTrump himself, who has not spoken publicly, did call Machado privately. The Venezuelan leader, in a message in English published X, dedicated the award to the American president for his support of the opposition cause. “I dedicate this award to the long-suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his determined support for our cause!” said the former representative in her publication, which included in English a direct dedication to the American head of state.
Machado maintained that the Venezuelan opposition is on the “threshold of victory” and that “today more than ever” it counts on the US president, the people of Latin America and the “democratic nations of the world” as the main allies to “achieve freedom and democracy.”
In recent weeks, the American president had vehemently claimed the award, reiterating that he had put an end to several conflicts: Cambodia-Thailand, Kosovo-Serbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo-Rwanda, Pakistan-India, Israel-Iran, Egypt-Ethiopia and Armenia-Azerbaijan. This Thursday, he added one more achievement to eight: the ceasefire in the Gaza Stripalthough experts point out that it has not promoted any formal peace treaty and that, in several of these conflicts, only fragile truces were reached.
More eloquent is the silence of Marco Rubio, who signed a letter last year to support Machado’s nomination for the Nobel Prize.
More eloquent is the silence of his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who signed last year, as a senator, a letter to support Machado’s nomination for the Nobel Prize that was finally awarded to him today. Rubio was part of a group of eight Republican legislators who sent the letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on August 26, 2024, a month after the elections in Venezuela, in which the opposition denounced the fraud of Nicolás Maduro, requesting the award for Machado.
On the contrary, several Republican congressmen from Florida, such as María Elvira Salazar or Rick Scott, did celebrate the award for Machado, whom they called a “liberator” and a “new Simón Bolívar.”
Neither the Maduro Government in Venezuela nor that of Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba have commented on the matter. The last statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cuba on the oil ally is from this same Thursday, but it only refers to the deployment of ships in the Caribbean by the Trump Administration to combat drug trafficking, which Havana attacks as an “escalation” prior to an “imminent aggression.”
“No comments,” was the response about the Nobel Prize to Machado from the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, also an ally of the Island. “We have always talked about the sovereignty and self-determination of the people, not only out of conviction, but because that is what the Constitution establishes and I would stop there in the comment,” she added in her usual morning conference.
“It is not my place to evaluate, of course, the decision made by the Nobel Committee”
In a similar sense, the Minister of the Presidency of Spain spoke, Felix Bolañoswithout mentioning the name of María Corina Machado: “It is not my place to evaluate, of course, the decision that the Nobel Committee has taken. I do tell you that Spain is always a country committed to human rights, to democracy, to peace, which prevails throughout the world, and precisely to the person who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Spain worked intensely to have her released during the time she was in prison, and therefore “That topic, little more to say.”
Bolaños has been the only member of the socialist Government of Pedro Sánchez – for whom the Spanish Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, also claimed the Nobel Peace Prize – who has given statements about the award to the Venezuelan. Both Sánchez and his Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, maintain an eloquent silence, which has been pointed out by the Spanish press and by the opposition.
“The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 not only honors a personal feat. It sends a decisive message to the world: the path to peace is democratic firmness and not complicity with tyranny,” wrote the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on his networks, attacking: “That is why Sánchez has not yet congratulated her. Not only have they woken up from their daydreams, but they have been put before the mirror of their infamy.” And he added: “Spain will once again have a Government that moves away from the dark interests of Sánchez and Zapatero, and defends freedom with the courage of María Corina Machado.”
The message referred to former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of the PSOE, officially “international mediator” between Maduro and the opposition, who has been accused of having economic ties with the Caribbean regime.
“The truth is that to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Corina Machado, who has been trying to carry out a coup d’état in her country for years, it could have been given directly to Trump or even to Adolf Hitler posthumously,” said Pablo Iglesias.
Lastly, the members of the far-left Podemos party have been directly aggressive, who have never hidden their sympathy for the Bolivarian leaders. “The truth is that to give the Nobel Peace Prize to Corina Machado, who has been trying to carry out a coup d’état in her country for years, they could have given it directly to Trump or even to Adolf Hitler posthumously. Next year, it will be shared by Putin and Zelenski. Yes, that’s it…”, the former vice president of the Spanish Government Pablo Iglesias wrote on his social networks.
“The degree of discredit that the international institutions that aspired to represent humanity are experiencing in these years is very high. The Nobel Peace Prize is now being awarded to coup plotters and war criminals,” said Podemos deputy and general secretary of the Party, Ione Belarra.
Machado remains in hiding within his country since his last public appearance, on January 9, when he led a protest in Caracas to defend the claimed victory of González Urrutia in the 2024 presidential elections, on the eve of the inauguration of Maduro, proclaimed winner of those elections by an electoral body controlled by officials related to Chavismo.
All the Nobel Prizes are awarded this year with 11 million Swedish crowns (997,000 euros, 1.2 million dollars) and will be awarded on December 10 in a double ceremony: in Oslo, for the Peace prize, and in Stockholm, for the rest.
The committee hopes that the opponent will be able to travel to the Norwegian capital within two months to collect the award, although it stressed that it is too early to know and that it is necessary to resolve a “serious” security issue first.
