Can Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Laureate Maria Corina Machado Inspire Change?

In Focus by The Hindu · Oct 11, 2025 · 34m

She has been tear-gassed, threatened, and banned from office — yet María Corina Machado never stopped speaking for a silenced nation.

Now, at 58, Venezuela’s most determined dissident has been named the country’s first Nobel Peace Prize winner — and only the 20th woman to ever receive it.

An engineer turned opposition leader, she has spent years standing up to Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, a government that jails critics and silences dissent.

Now in hiding, Machado continues to speak out — urging even soldiers to trade loyalty to power for loyalty to the people. Her surprise and…