The Final Nail That Sealed The Nobel Peace Prize’s Coffin

On October 10, 2025, María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan politician and activist, was honored with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Machado gained recognition in 2002 during a short-lived ‘coup d’état’ against Hugo Chávez. The controversial activist has frequently been labeled as a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset, particularly after it was revealed that Sumat, a volunteer civil association established by Machado in 2002, was receiving financial support from the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization infamous for facilitating CIA-backed regime changes around the World. Since that time, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize committee has faced significant backlash, with critics directly questioning the legitimacy of this award and highlighting the ethical decline of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado was a co-founder of Sumate, a volunteer civil association that was created to oversee elections and mobilize opposition against Chavez. After the failed coup against the ‘Comandante’, the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) allocated $1,000,000 to Venezuelan dissident groups, which subsequently began to receive regular funding from the NED. In 2004, Sumate launched a recall referendum aimed at Chavez, but the famously resilient Venezuelan leader triumphed, leading to an inquiry into the financial ties between Sumate and the NED.

THE MOST POLITICIZED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE EVER? INSIDE VENEZUELA’S CONTROVERSY

Dive into the heated debate surrounding the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and its political implications. This clip exposes the U.S-Venezuela power struggle and why some call this award the most politicized… pic.twitter.com/PgJTg0c8dm

— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) October 13, 2025

In 2006, Machado was elected to the National Assembly and continued to oppose the Chavez administration. The economic crisis intensified in 2014, and Machado was expelled from the National Assembly. Venezuela entered a recession due to its heavy dependence on oil revenue and extensive welfare spending, which failed to attract foreign investment or diversify the economy.

In 2015, the US began imposing sanctions on Venezuelan government officials, and by 2017, Trump escalated the situation with a full-scale trade war.

On January 23, 2019, Juan Guaidó, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly, proclaimed himself as the ‘interim president.’ He was immediately endorsed by Donald Trump and dozens of US-aligned nations. Machado, who initially backed him, eventually had to distance herself, waiting for her time to come. Nevertheless, the coup did not succeed, and another attempt in 2020 also ended in failure.

Machado eventually stepped forward as an opportunistic alternative by winning the 2023 opposition primary, which raised her profile dramatically; however, in 2024, she was barred from participating in the election for 15 years. The Court stated that it was for her support of US sanctions on Venezuela and President Maduro, and for more importantly, for her involvement in the corruption plot orchestrated by the usurper Juan Guaido, which had led to a paralysing blockade on Venezuela, as well as the shameless dispossession of the companies and wealth of the Bolivarian Republic. The US and its allies quickly turned her into an international icon and flag bearer of democracy. In the 2024 election, she fiercely rallied around candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, operating under precarious conditions. But Maduro won the election, whilst the opposition claimed that they had documents to show otherwise. In 2025, the Venezuelan government intercepted her convoy when she was out on a rally in Caracas; she was forced off the road and went into hiding, becoming Venezuela’s most famous fugitive.

While the Nobel Prize awarded to Machado seems to serve as a clear endorsement for regime change in Venezuela, it fails to address Machado’s explicit backing of sanctions against the country, which are exacerbating its economic turmoil. It also overlooks her dismantling of democratic institutions and her economic agenda, which closely resembles that of infamous South American dictators.. Furthermore, there is no mention of her contentious public endorsement of the Gaza war crimes or her notorious 2018 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the mastermind behind the Gaza genocide, in which she urged Israel to ‘take steps towards dismantling what she refers to as the “criminal Venezuelan regime.’ Additionally, no mention was made of the cooperation agreement she signed with Israel’s Likud party in 2020, all while labelling Israel as a ‘true ally of freedom.’

As Washington escalates its threats towards Caracas, recent US operations were conducted in the Caribbean Sea under the pretext of a so-called “war on drugs.” Donald Trump has imposed even stricter sanctions on Venezuela, and his administration appears to be considering the option of direct intervention. By dedicating her Nobel Prize to Donald Trump, Machado has confirmed that her allegiance does not lie with the Venezuelan people but with foreign leaders and war criminals who have repeatedly shown profound disregard for international humanitarian law. It takes a very cynical individual to express the notion that “the struggle of Venezuela is the struggle of Israel.”

Undoubtedly, the integrity of the Nobel Peace Prize has been irreparably compromised by its moral inconsistencies and political opportunism that only serve Washington’s interests. Venezuela Analysis has the story…

IMAGE: Atilio Boron, the author featured below, argues that awarding María Corina Machado was the final nail in the coffin for the Nobel Peace Prize’s ethical decay. 

Atilio Boron reports for Venezuela Analysis…

The Death of the Nobel Peace Prize

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado marks the culmination of a long process of moral and political decline that has left an indelible mark on the award. It will continue to be awarded year after year, but it will forever be tarnished by its ethical incoherence and political opportunism at the service of Washington.

Of course, what has happened in recent days is nothing new. The prize was discredited long ago. However, on a few occasions, it had been awarded to people whose careers were clearly aligned with peace: Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1979), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980), South African bishop Desmond Tutu (1984), and Nelson Mandela (1993). However, awarding the prize to Henry Kissinger in 1973 irrevocably tarnished Alfred Nobel’s original idea of honoring those who strive for peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. A serial killer, Kissinger was responsible for the brutal bombing of Vietnam and the destabilization of democratic processes, such as in Salvador Allende’s Chile.

The same could be said of Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, oddly awarded just a few months after he took office, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” according to the official text. Unfortunately, the facts contradicted the Nobel Committee’s assessment: during his eight years in office, Obama never ceased to wage wars and conduct military operations abroad. He authorized 563 attacks, primarily drone strikes, to eliminate “terrorist targets” in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. This figure is all the more striking when compared with the mere 57 attacks ordered during George W. Bush’s administration, despite his launching the so-called “war on terror.” Estimates of civilian casualties in those countries range from 384 to 807, the vast majority of which occurred while Obama held the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award to María Corina Machado adds another somber note to this tally. She has long been a fervent advocate of violence, a stance she has maintained without pause since Hugo Chávez Frías was elected in December 1998, under the Fourth Republic’s framework. From the outset of Chávez’s presidency, Machado and other figures tied to the old, corrupt politics of the Fourth Republic were involved in conspiracy. Their plans culminated on April 11, 2002, in a coup that failed to end Chávez’s life by a miracle.

The coup plotters drafted a text with the grand title “Constitution of the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity,” establishing a de facto government led by Pedro Carmona, head of the powerful Fedecámaras [Chamber of Business and Commerce]. This self-proclaimed champion of democratic governance was exemplary only for its brevity. True to form, Carmona did not waste time—an area in which progressive governments have historically excelled—as his first official action was to dissolve the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council, remove the Attorney General, the Comptroller of the Republic and the Ombudsman, dismiss all governors, mayors and councilors, decree the removal of all ambassadors, consuls and vice-consuls, abolish the 49 enabling laws and the new constitution, and restore Venezuela’s old name by ending the Bolivarian Republic designation.

All of these attacks on Venezuela’s democratic institutions were endorsed by a call to the country’s “living forces,” which met at the Miraflores Palace and signed a document detailing the aforementioned measures to support the new regime. Among the signatories was María Corina Machado.

Was that her sole youthful misstep? No, this was merely the opening chapter in a career increasingly marked by appeals to violence. She traveled to Washington to meet with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office on May 31, 2005, seeking support to overthrow Venezuela’s constitutional government. In other words, she proposed an American military intervention that would have resulted in a bloodbath in her homeland. She continued along this path and, in March 2014, during the first of the deadly “guarimbas”—riots by armed lumpens and paramilitaries—organized by the Venezuelan right to topple the government, Machado reappeared on the international stage as a Panama “alternate ambassador” (yes, Panama, not Venezuela) at the Organization of American States (OAS)’s Permanent Council session. All this while she was a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly. She urged the OAS Permanent Council to authorize a multinational military intervention against Venezuela to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, an act of vile treachery against her own country.

In 2017, the “guarimbas” resurfaced with the full backing of Venezuela’s right wing and its US sponsors. Meanwhile, María Corina Machado, now the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, offered no condemnation of the crimes against the people. Quite the contrary. Over the years, she has repeatedly urged foreign intervention to overthrow the Bolivarian government while consistently dismissing any criticism of the “guarimberos,” who blocked streets and intersections to create the illusion of a nationwide civic strike aimed at forcing the government to fall. People who dared to venture out of their homes during these riots, if they were not killed, were met with fierce attacks. They even burned people alive for merely being identified as Chavista. There is extensive documentation of these crimes, as well as of Machado’s complicit silence.

It should not be forgotten that this self-styled Venezuelan “patriot” leader spent many years urging the governments of the United States and the European Union to impose harsh economic sanctions and a wide range of other measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. She was also investigated for conspiracy after an NGO she founded and directed received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a program financed by the US Congress, for campaigns aimed at destabilizing the Bolivarian government.

María Corina Machado embodies fascist violence. In most countries, she would face severe legal action for advocating the invasion of Venezuela by a foreign power and for supporting unilateral coercive measures that bring about enormous sacrifices on her fellow citizens. Her violent frenzy and her bootlicking towards the imperial master have resulted in her resounding silence regarding the ongoing, horrifying genocide in Gaza. Then there is her silence about the risks posed to the Venezuelan people by the deployment of US naval forces to the southern Caribbean and the possible aggression that would ensue. Unsurprisingly, she dedicated her Nobel Prize to Donald Trump, while all Western media mercenary outlets have lauded her as a champion of peace, human rights and democracy.

Such abundant praise for Machado is unsurprising: after all, it comes from the same media outlets and rulers who, for two years, turned a blind eye, endorsed, funded, and offered diplomatic cover for the Israeli government to carry out the barbaric genocide of Gazans. With a few exceptions, reading the Western press is nauseating due to the lies, double standards and systematic concealment of countless crimes. This is why the Western bloc, in frank and irreversible decline, applauds the Nobel Prize awarded to María Corina Machado. Upon hearing the news, Richard Grenell, the White House special envoy, offered only a brief remark: “The Nobel Prize died years ago.” He was right, but one final nail was still needed to seal the coffin. María Corina Machado provided it.

NOTE: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

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