MARÍA CORINA MACHADO: THE PRO-AMERICAN COUP LEADER WHO WON THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Foreword

Nobel Peace Prize controversies often reach beyond the academic community. Criticisms that have been levelled against some of the awards include allegations that they were politically motivated, premature, or guided by a faulty definition of what constitutes work for peace.

The awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado was welcomed by many prominent figures and politicians within the EU, but it has sparked a political and media debate. The Venezuelan opposition leader, awarded for her efforts "in favor of democracy and human rights," described by the Norwegian Committee as "a courageous and committed champion of peace" who keeps "the flame of democracy burning amid growing darkness," is celebrated in the West as a symbol of resistance to Chavism.

Far from a pacifist, however, Machado is a pro-American coup plotter who has not hesitated to resort to violence and call for external intervention against her country, placing herself among the constellation of radical right-wing political forces contemplating the use of external pressure as leverage for regime change in Venezuela.

Current situation

More than a tribute to peace, the Nobel Prize awarded to Machado appears to be a political gesture from the West toward Washington, although the White House formally criticized the decision, with Donald Trump hoping to receive the prize. This Nobel Prize is a "proxy" victory for the US president, whom Machado calls "a constant ally" of the Venezuelan cause. Hailing from the most radical wing of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado has advocated military intervention to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro thus acting as a  coup plotter under Washington's umbrella.

She initially participated in the failed coup against Hugo Chávez in April 2002, remained a point of reference for the Venezuelan pro-American radical right, openly opposed to any form of political compromise, taking positions incompatible with the principles of dialogue, sovereignty, and non-interference that a peace award should represent.

Background 

María Corina Machado was born in Caracas on October 7, 1967, to a wealthy family with ties to the Venezuelan elite. Since 2002 she established  financial ties to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US agency that for decades has funded "democracy promotion" projects abroad  in geopolitically sensitive contexts.

The  NED projects in Venezuela have historically operated in synergy with the US State Department's destabilization strategies. Machado, through her association Súmate has consistently opposed Chavism, promoting actions that have had a clear political impact.

In fact, the association served as the springboard for Machado's public rise and her consolidation as a point of reference for the pro-American and neo-liberal wing of the Venezuelan opposition.  In May 2014 she took part in  a plot by opposition politicians and officials to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Reactions to the Nobel Prize Award

In Spain, the Podemos party denounced that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Machado was tantamount to rewarding "coup plotters and war criminals." Former leader Pablo Iglesias went further, stating that Machado "has been attempting a coup in Venezuela for years."

Machado is accused of having promoted, directly or indirectly, strategies aimed at destabilizing Nicolás Maduro's government, to the point of being considered a figure willing to resort to external mechanisms to achieve regime change, including the use of violent actions and provocations resulting in deaths, injuries, and assaults to be presented as legitimate acts of revolt, useful to justify international intervention.

Sanctions and Neo-liberal Restoration Planning

Machado has also openly supported the use of economic sanctions against the Venezuelan regime, believing them to be an indispensable tool for exerting pressure, even though sanctions are a weapon that harms the civilian population and a form of external interference. Her positions have long favored the US policy of isolating Venezuela by supporting in 2024 a US Congressional bill prohibiting contracts with Venezuelan entities. 

The Venezuelan government accuses her of operating as a political powerhouse with external influence, seen as a means of influencing the Venezuelan electoral process from abroad.

Machado also supports a massive privatization plan that calls for a reduction in the role of the state, the opening of free markets. In other words, she is a right-wing leader who proposes neo-liberal restoration as an alternative to Chavism.

In 2018 she asked Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Prime Minister, to use "force and influence" against the Venezuelan government. At the same time, Machado has developed relationships with Javier Milei, the ultra-liberal Argentine president. In August of this year, she publicly thanked him for his support of the Venezuelan cause. This type of alliance is already a political signal in itself: Machado's international network is built  with a fiercely neo-liberal economic agenda.

Considerations

The Nobel Prize selection comes amidst an unstable global context, with ideological clashes between blocs and the re-emergence of Latin America as a point of contention. The Prize Committee wanted to avoid the backlash of awarding the prize directly to the US president, but chose an alternative that could still serve as a symbolic pawn in its political ecosystem.

The American media openly spoke of a "symbolic rebound": the award did not go directly to Trump, but to a figure supported by the current US administration, which, most recently through Marco Rubio, reiterated its view of Maduro's government as "illegitimate."

The Norwegian committee's decision clearly has the flavor of a political gesture: in an era marked by geographically distant wars, by US pressure in Latin America disguised as the fight against drug trafficking, and by the polarization between international blocs, Machado becomes the image of the coup opposition, the chosen face for an ideological manoeuvrer that intertwines the United States, the Latin American radical right, neoliberalism, and new forms of hybrid interference.

Conclusion

There’s nothing remotely peaceful about Machado's politics. If this is what counts as “peace” in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy. Machado’s politics are steeped in violence. She has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela’s sovereignty, and denying its people the right to live with dignity.

She cheered on Donald Trump’s threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a show of force that risks igniting regional war under the pretext of “combating narco-trafficking.” While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy, promising to deliver Venezuela’s sovereignty on a silver platter.

She vows to reopen Venezuela’s embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it self-defense

Now she wants to hand over the country’s oil, water, and infrastructure to private corporations. This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neo-liberal misery in the 1990s.

Machado isn’t a symbol of peace or progress. She is part of a global alliance between fascism, Zionism, and neoliberalism: an axis that justifies domination in the language of democracy and peace. In Venezuela, that alliance has meant coups, sanctions, and privatization. In Gaza, it means genocide and the erasure of a people. The ideology is the same: a belief that some lives are disposable, that sovereignty is negotiable, and that violence can be sold as order.”

Every time this award is handed to an architect of violence disguised as diplomacy, it spits in the face of those who actually fight for peace, like the Palestinian journalists in Gaza who, with no safety or rest, document the bombings, name the victims, and keep the truth alive when the world looks away.