María Corina Machado has not made any public appearances since January 9. Since then, when she spoke at a demonstration in Caracas, she has remained in hiding.
Not even her family has met her, and they too are waiting for the Nobel Prize winner in Oslo.
I feel good, but there are a lot of emotions right now, says mother Corina Parisca Pérez to NRK .
She is in the Norwegian capital with Machado's daughter, two sons and several other family members. They tell NRK that they have not met the Venezuelan opposition leader since Christmas 2023.
But it's not certain that they will get to meet her in Oslo either.
Surrounded by security
Nobel Committee Secretary Kristian Berg Harpviken, who previously said he had received confirmation that Machado would be coming, tells NRK that it is "likely" that she will appear at Oslo City Hall on Wednesday.
But it may happen that she doesn't make it in time, in which case we have alternative ways to hold (the ceremony), such as having the family receive the award.
The entire trip is surrounded by security and question marks. She herself has said that she wants to receive the award on site, but she has a travel ban and no passport. According to sources to NRK, she may have received help from the US to be smuggled out via Puerto Rico.
“Counting on Trump”
Venezuela's state prosecutor Tarek William Saab said in November that the government considers her "a fugitive" fleeing justice if she comes to Oslo.
Argentine President Javier Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and Paraguayan President Santiago Peña have all confirmed that they will attend the peace prize ceremony, NTB reports. Like María Corina Machado, they have all highlighted US President Donald Trump.
When she received the Peace Prize, she wrote on X that "(we) count on President Trump" in the fight for freedom and democracy and against Venezuela's authoritarian rule under President Nicolás Maduro.
Martin Yngve/TT
Facts: María Corina Machado
TT
Born: October 7, 1967 in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
María Corina Machado receives the Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work in promoting democratic rights for the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
In January, she was arrested and later released during a protest against Maduro's re-instatement as president of Venezuela. It was her first public appearance in months. She has not been seen in public since.
She began her career as an activist and leader of the Fundación Atenea foundation.
Machado has long been a vocal critic of former President Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro. In 2010, she became more active in politics as a member of the National Assembly for the opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) party.
In 2014, she led widespread demonstrations against the increasingly authoritarian Maduro. Since then, she has been a central leader of the Venezuelan opposition.
María Corina Machado was already honored in Europe last year, when she received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Human Rights. She has also been awarded the Council of Europe's human rights prize, the Vaclav Havel Prize, for her fight for democracy under Maduro's rule.
