An emotional Ana Corina Sosa Machado took the podium after receiving the award on behalf of her mother, confirming that María Corina Machado will arrive in Oslo “in just a few hours.”
And while I wait to hug her, kiss her, embrace her – after two years – I think about the other daughters and sons who don't get to see their mothers.
Today, this is what drives her. What drives us all. She wants to live in a free Venezuela and she will never give up.
In a long speech, written by María Corina Machado and delivered by Ana Corina Sosa, the laureate promises freedom for the people of Venezuela:
Venezuela will breathe again. We will open the prison doors and see thousands who have been illegally imprisoned step out into the warm sun, embraced at last by those who never stopped fighting for them.
Lives hidden
Until the very end, it was unclear whether María Corina Machado would make it on time. Shortly before the award ceremony, she announced that she was on her way, in a telephone conversation that was posted on the Nobel Prize website.
In the conversation, on behalf of the people of Venezuela, she thanked the Norwegian Nobel Committee "for this enormous recognition of our people's struggle for democracy and freedom."
María Corina Machado has become a unifying force for Venezuela's fragmented opposition to the country's authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro. Since her last public appearance, during a demonstration in Caracas in January, she has remained in hiding.
The idea was that three generations of the Machado family would come together in connection with today's award ceremony after several years of exile in different countries, but that meeting will likely come later on Wednesday.
However, the ceremony in Oslo City Hall was attended by a number of South American leaders, including Argentine President Javier Milei.
Living with death threats
According to the head of the Nobel Institute, it has been more demanding than expected to get Machado safely to Oslo.
She simply lives under death threats from the regime. That threat applies even when she is outside the country, from both the regime and from the regime's friends around the world, Kristian Berg Harpviken tells NRK.
58-year-old María Corina Machado is awarded the 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," according to the citation.
Born: October 7, 1967 in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
Began his career as an activist and leader of the Fundación Atenea.
In 2002, together with Alejandro Plaz, she created the voluntary organization Súmate, which, among other things, monitors elections.
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.
