Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to promote democratic rights in her country and her struggle to achieve a transition to democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The following are some facts about the democracy campaign:
Overclass’s background
Maria Corina Machado, 58, was born in Caracas, Venezuela, October 7, 1967. She is an industrial engineer at training and her father was a prominent businessman in Venezuela’s steel industry. Her upper -class roots have made her a target of criticism from Venezuela’s controlling Socialist Party.
In Hide
Machado won a resounding victory in the opposition’s primary election in 2023, and her rallies attracted large crowds, but a ban from holding public office prevented her from driving to president against Nicolas Maduro in a 2024 election, and she went into hiding.
The country’s electoral authority and supreme court says Maduro, whose time in office has been characterized by a deep economic and social crisis, won the election, although they have never published detailed tallies.
Machado came out of hiding to get a brief performance during a protest before Maduro’s inauguration in January. She was briefly arrested and then released.
Lawyer for Liberal Economic Reforms
Machado advocates liberal economic reforms, including privatization of state -owned companies such as PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil company. She also supports the creation of welfare programs aimed at helping the country’s poorest citizens.
Political activism
Her political activism has come to a prize, leaving her in isolation, as almost all of her senior advisers have been detained or forced to leave the country. Machado himself has accused Maduro’s administration of operating as a “criminal mafia.”
Collective struggle
Although he is sometimes criticized for being egotist – even by his own mother – Machado rarely talks about himself in public. Instead, she frame her campaign as a collective struggle for redemption and unity with the aim of inspiring hope among Venezuelans tired of financial difficulty and social decay.
