Pictured is Maria Corina Machado, a freedom-fighter from Venezuela who has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. If you click the link just provided, you can read what the Norwegian Nobel Committee has to say about her.
I, personally, thought that The Wall Street Journal did a good job describing why Machado properly received the Peace Prize this year. A copy of The Journal's editorial from its Saturday/Sunday, October 11-12, 2025 edition is below:
A Nobel for Venezuela’s Iron Lady
María Corina Machado has been fighting for democracy for decades.
By The Editorial BoardOct. 10, 2025 at 5:46 pm
Allies of President Trump are grousing that he didn’t win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. But it’s hard to fault the admirable choice, announced Friday, of Venezuelan freedom fighter María Corina Machado.
The Nobel committee called her “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent time,” and we’d drop the geographic caveat. In the personal risks and sacrifices she has made for democracy, she sets an example for the world.
Educated as an industrial engineer, Ms. Machado has been a leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela for more than 20 years. In 2002 she watched Hugo Chávez destroy institutions and consolidate power. She resisted by co-founding the nonprofit Súmate—“Join” in English—to engage Venezuelans to become politically active.
She was elected to the National Assembly in 2010. In 2013 she was beaten during a legislative session by pro-government members who broke her nose. In March 2014 during a visit to the border with Colombia, she was kidnapped for several hours by armed hoodlums. The following week the regime expelled her from the Assembly.
In 2024, when Chavez’s successor Nicolás Maduro agreed to hold elections he thought he could rig, he barred her from running against him. But Ms. Machado led the opposition strategy to get out the vote and capture images of voter tally-sheets at each precinct at the end of the day.
Uploaded to the internet, the results proved to the world that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won with some 70% of the vote. Mr. Maduro’s goons issued a warrant for her arrest, and she has since been in hiding.
“This is not my prize alone,” Ms. Machado said Friday. “It belongs to the thousands of Venezuelans who have fought for democracy, for peace, and for the dignity of our people. This award recognizes the suffering of those who have been unjustly imprisoned, exiled, and silenced. It is a call to the world to continue standing with us, as we strive for a free and democratic Venezuela.”
The peace prize will bring new world attention to the cause of Venezuelan freedom, which Mr. Trump also supports. We only wish the Nobel committee had made her a co-winner with Jimmy Lai, the publisher who’s been a political prisoner in Hong Kong for his fight for democracy. If Mr. Trump helps Ms. Machado and the Venezuelan people restore democracy, and helps free Mr. Lai from prison, the President will deserve the Nobel next year.
What struck me most forcefully in The Journal's editorial statement was its explanation of the name of the political movement co-founded by Machado. "Súmate" means "join." Machado, in other words, has called upon the citizens of Venezuela to "join together," to "organize," as the path to genuine political freedom. This is what it takes to achieve "self-government," the opposite kind of government than that deployed by Nicolás Maduro, the nation's current strongman president.
Our own "strongman wanna-be" president can only prevail in his drive to make the United States into a nation of subjects, instead of a nation of free citizens, if we fail to heed the necessity of what Machado called out to her compatriots in Venezuela. We must "join" together if we wish to rule ourselves.
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