The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize goes to Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan activist and politician, leader of the opposition to the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro and member of the national assembly from January 2011 to March 2014. Founder of Vente Venezuela, she was a presidential candidate in 2024 but her candidacy was blocked and Machado was politically incapacitated. The Committee has decided to reward his commitment to the request for free elections and a representative and democratic government in Venezuela with the following reasons: «his tireless commitment to promoting democratic rights for the Venezuelan people and for a just and peaceful transition to democracy. She fought for judicial independence, human rights and popular representation».
There has been a lot of discussion in the last few hours about a possible victory for Donald Trump following the signing of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but the Commission met for the last time on 6 October, therefore before the truce was put in place.
Who is Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan oppositionist who won the Nobel Peace Prize
Born in Caracas in 1967, Maria Corina Machado founded the political movement Vente Venezuela and in 2002 co-founded the civil association Súmate, a group of volunteers that monitors elections to ensure their transparency and promotes the political rights of the Venezuelan people. It is also part of the city’s “I am Venezuela” platform.
In the political elections held in Venezuela in 2024 she was the opposition presidential candidate for Vente Venezuela, after obtaining over 3 million votes in the October 2023 primaries with 90% of the preferences. However, her candidacy was blocked and she was politically disabled for 15 years by the Comptroller General of the Republic, accused of having supported the idea of international sanctions against the country.
His political demands concern the end of Nicolàs Maduro’s government and a democratic transition, underlining the importance of citizen participation. She declares herself a centrist liberal, despite having often been described as a right-wing politician supported by national right-wing parties, with extreme positions against the government of Nicolas Maduro. Machado called for a ban on re-election to political office in Venezuela and a national debate on the legality of abortion in cases of rape. Supported by the current US government and the European Union, it advocates privatizing state entities in Venezuela, including the oil company PDVSA.
Considered a supporter of democracy and human rights, in 2024 Machado had already received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – an award dedicated to the Soviet scientist and dissident Andrej Dmitrievič Sakharov and established in 1988 by the European Parliament – and the Václav Havel Prize for Human Rights, awarded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Nobel Peace Prize 2025: why Trump couldn’t have gotten it
The name of US President Donald Trump also appears among the candidates for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, proposed by Republican MP Claudia Tenney. The US president has repeatedly claimed to deserve this recognition for his commitment to having “put an end to eight wars”, in which he also included the war between Israel and Hamas following the peace agreement signed on 9 October.
In reality, a Trump victory was considered unlikely because the Committee’s choice of winner is made long before the day of the announcement. The secretary of the Nobel Peace Prize commission Kristian Berg Harpviken has in fact underlined that, in choosing the candidate, what matters above all is what happens before January 31st. Furthermore, the last meeting of the Committee was held on October 6, so the agreement for the ceasefire in Gaza could not have influenced the choice of this year’s winner.
In the past, four Presidents of the United States have obtained this recognition: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919, Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Barack Obama in 2009.
How the Nobel Peace Prize works and statistics
The Nobel Peace Prize (in Swedish Nobels fredspris), established in 1895 by Alfred Nobel as the fifth and final area of prizes mentioned in his will, is a prize that is awarded every year to individuals or organizations who have distinguished themselves in favor of peace, respect for human rights and democracy. It was awarded for the first time in 1901 to Jean Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross from which the Geneva Conventions for human rights were born.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, made up of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament. Nomination procedures begin in September each year and no one can self-nominate for the Nobel Prize. In fact, they are members of academies, scientists, former Nobel Prize winners, professors, parliamentarians and other prestigious figures who are invited to present their candidates for the following year’s Prize, trying to maintain equal institutional and geographical representation. This year there were 338 nominees, including 94 organizations and 244 individuals, the second highest number ever after 376 nominees in 2016.
Regarding nominations, the Norwegian Nobel Committee does not confirm the names of the candidates, not even to the media, and in cases where they are published or appear in the press, this may occur either for speculative purposes or simply because the individuals themselves make known the names of the candidates they nominate. The official list of candidates nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is published by the Committee 50 years after the awarding of the prize.
In addition to the strong symbolic value and prestige from an international point of view, the prize consists of 9 million Swedish crowns, approximately 900,000 euros, and is awarded from the interest on the capital donated by Alfred Nobel. In addition to the cash prize, the winners also receive a gold medal and a diploma, which will be awarded during the ceremony on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
In the history of the Nobel Peace Prize, the award has been awarded twice to the same winner: the International Committee of the Red Cross which received three prizes, in 1917, 1944 and 1963 and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1954 and 1981. Since it was established, the Nobel Peace Prize has only been awarded to 20 women and from the point of view of geographical distribution, South America is the continent which has received fewer Nobel Peace Prizes (2%), while Europe has the highest share of winners (45%).
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, the Peace Prize is not awarded in Sweden but in Norway, precisely in Oslo. The reason lies in the fact that, when it was established, Norway was still united with Sweden: between 1814 and 1905, in fact, the Norwegian crown came under Swedish control, only subsequently becoming an independent constitutional monarchy.
