South America08 October, 20262 min read
Sonia Zapata Says 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Returned Venezuela to International Agenda
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María Corina Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Machado handed her Nobel medal to President Donald Trump.
8 outlets told this the same way.
Outlets did split on Brazil Police Kill Suspect After 13 Kindergarteners Held Hostage In Curitiba →
Nobel, then pressure
Oslo is set to announce who will receive the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2026, as Sonia Zapata reflects on what the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado has meant for Venezuela. Zapata says the 2025 prize returned Venezuela to the international agenda and that the Norwegian Nobel Committee confirmed that the Venezuelan crisis is, at its core, a struggle for democracy, human dignity, political rights, and the right of a people to choose their own future.
“This Friday, October 9, 2026, Oslo will announce who will receive the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.”
Zapata also links the Nobel moment to a shift in attention for Venezuelans in Norway, quoting Jørgen Watne Frydnes during the Nobel ceremony: "When Venezuelans asked the world to pay attention, we turned our backs on them." Zapata adds that the Nobel Peace Prize did not reveal anything Venezuelans did not already know, but it gave international weight to concerns that had been brought into public debate in countries of residence.
Medal to Trump
María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize saga, winner in 2025, began with a secret trip and ended with her handing her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump during a private lunch at the White House. Machado said, "I presented to the United States president the Nobel Peace Prize medal," and she added, "We count on President Trump for the freedom of Venezuela," after her meeting with the American in Washington.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute rushed to explain that the prize cannot be transferred, shared, or revoked and that the committee's decision is final and permanent. Folha de S.Paulo also describes how Machado had been in hiding for more than a year to avoid imprisonment after Nicolás Maduro’s re-election to a third term, which she denounced as fraudulent, and it says she came out of hiding in December to travel to receive the prize in Norway.
Ineligibility fight
Vente Venezuela called for the immediate lifting of María Corina Machado’s political disqualification after a former magistrate of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice said she was forced to sign the measure that prevented Machado from competing in the 2024 elections. Vente party said in a press release, "Maria Corina Machado's ineligibility, illegal from its origin (...), was achieved only by using close associates" and it demanded, "This ineligibility must be lifted IMMEDIATELY,".
Bárbara César Siero, 51, told AFP that two of her brothers and her sister-in-law, who were in the military, were detained in December 2023 with the aim of forcing her to sign the document that disqualified Machado. Vente Venezuela said the disqualification was "illegal from its origin" because it was ratified under pressure on the magistrate, and it quoted the party’s view that "Stopping and punishing family members to break a person’s will reveals how far the chavismo criminal apparatus was willing to go to politically persecute" its opponents.