Nobel laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado emerged from hiding to make her first public appearance in almost a year, waving to supporters from the balcony of her Oslo hotel early on Thursday.
Machado, who won the Nobel for challenging Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s grip on power, did not arrive in Norway in time for Wednesday’s prize ceremony.
Her daughter collected the prestigious award on her behalf, and delivered a blistering acceptance speech in her stead.
The Venezuelan democracy campaigner made it to the Norwegian capital hours later, and went straight to see her family, Nobel Prize Committee Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said.
From the balcony of the Grand Hotel, Machado later greeted a crowd of jubilant supporters, who sang and shouted “libertad” (freedom), according to AFP journalists.
Machado, who has been living in hiding in Venezuela, was last seen in public on January 9, when she protested Maduro’s inauguration for his third term.
In her Nobel acceptance speech, the democracy campaigner urged her compatriots to keep fighting against Maduro’s “state terrorism”.
“What we Venezuelans can offer the world is the lesson forged through this long and difficult journey: that to have democracy, we must be willing to fight for freedom,” Machado said in a speech delivered by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado.
It is unclear how Machado managed to leave Venezuela, or how she plans to eventually return.
She was warned by Caracas that she would be labelled a “fugitive” if she left the country.
“She risks being arrested if she returns, even if the authorities have shown more restraint with her than with many others, because arresting her would have a very strong symbolic value,” said Benedicte Bull, a professor specialising in Latin America at the University of Oslo.
Machado’s previous refusal to leave the country had also boosted her political power.
“She is the undisputed leader of the opposition, but if she were to stay away in exile for a long time, I think that would change and she would gradually lose political influence,” Bull added.
‘State terrorism’
Her daughter assured the Nobel prize audience that her mother would return. “She wants to live in a free Venezuela, and she will never give up on that purpose,” Ana Corina Sosa Machado said.
Machado’s mother and three daughters, and some Latin American heads of state, including Argentine President Javier Milei, were at the prize-giving at Oslo’s City Hall.
In her acceptance speech, Machado denounced kidnappings and torture under Maduro’s tenure, calling them “crimes against humanity” and “state terrorism, deployed to bury the will of the people”.
Machado has been hailed for her fight for democracy, but also criticised for aligning herself with US President Donald Trump, to whom she has dedicated her Nobel.
The Oslo ceremony coincides with a large US military build-up in the Caribbean in recent weeks and deadly strikes on what Washington says are drug-smuggling boats.
Maduro, who came to power in 2013, insists the goal of the US operations — which Machado has said are justified — is to topple the government and seize Venezuela’s oil reserves
Nobel prize
Machado has accused Maduro of stealing Venezuela’s July 2024 election, from which she was banned — a claim backed by much of the international community.
The opposition claimed its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won the election. He now lives in exile and was also in Oslo on Wednesday.
Multiple other Nobel Peace Prize-winners have been unable to collect their awards in person. Family members usually do so on their behalf, Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken explained this week.
The Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics all received their prizes from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Wednesday.
The prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and 11 million kronor ($1.2 million) — which is shared when several laureates are honoured in the same category.
