Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, banned from leaving her own country by the socialist Maduro regime, will not receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person on Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said.
“She is unfortunately not in Norway and will not stand on stage at Oslo City Hall at 01:00 p.m. when the ceremony starts,” Norwegian Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken reportedly told Norway’s NRK on Wednesday.
Machado, a former lawmaker and the head of Venezuela’s only mainstream center-right party Vente Venezuela, has been in hiding at an undisclosed location in Venezuela since the aftermath of the fraudulent July 2024 presidential election, facing threats of arrest by the Maduro regime on dubious “acts of conspiracy, incitement to hatred,” and “terrorism” charges.
The Venezuelan regime also imposed a still-active full travel ban in 2014 as punishment for her support of a series of anti-regime protests that took place at the time.
In October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Machado for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” Machado was due to receive the award in person in Oslo on Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. (GMT).
Although Machado had expressed that she would travel to Oslo to receive the award, her current whereabouts remain publicly unknown at press time and it remains unclear if she is still inside Venezuela or not.
Her sister, Clara Machado, told Colombia’s Blu Radio on Tuesday amid speculation over her attendance that her family remained convinced that she will be able to travel to Oslo to receive the award.
“At this moment, we don’t really know. She is trying to get to Oslo, which is her wish,” Machado’s sister said.
In Late November, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab reiterated that the socialist regime is actively wanting to arrest Machado and threatened to have her declared a “fugitive” if she traveled out of Venezuela.
Being outside Venezuela and facing numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive,” Saab told AFP at the time.
A picture of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado is seen in the “Nobel Field” at the exhibition “Democracy on the brink” in honour of the laureate at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo on December 9, 2025, on the eve of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. (Odd ANDERSEN / AFP via Getty)
Several regional heads of state and international representatives are presently in Oslo for the upcoming ceremony, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Panama’s José Raúl Mulino, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and Paraguay’s Santiago Peña, all of whom expressed their intention to accompany Machado at the ceremony.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee told Bloomberg through a text message in November that the organization was “very aware that it’s a dangerous journey for her,” and that they were “working on the assumption that she will be able to go back and continue her important work in Venezuela.”
Machado dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan people and to President Donald Trump over his “decisive” support of the Venezuelan cause. The Nobel Committee’s decision to award Machado with the Peace Prize elicited fierce anger from socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, members of his regime, and the international left.
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