Maria Corina Machado, the head of the Venezuelan opposition, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to the people of Venezuela today. She also thanked US President Donald Trump for his “decisive support” for her country’s pro-democracy movement.
“I give this award to the people of Venezuela who are suffering and to President Trump for his strong support of our cause!” she wrote on X.
“We are on the verge of victory, and today, more than ever, we rely on President Trump, the people of the United States, the people of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” she said.
According to AFP, Machado has been hiding in Venezuela for the past year since elections that authoritarian leftist President Nicolas Maduro is suspected of stealing.
Machado couldn’t run for office, so she campaigned for her stand-in, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a former diplomat who many people around the world thought should have won.
The Nobel Committee said she deserved the award for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her fight to bring about a fair and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Machado, who is 58 years old, has supported Trump’s ongoing military pressure campaign against Maduro, which includes a large US naval deployment near Venezuela, as a “necessary measure” to bring about a democratic transition in Venezuela.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, shared Machado’s post on her X account, which was about giving her Nobel Prize to Trump.
Many of Machado’s fellow opposition leaders, including Henrique Capriles, who ran for president twice, sent her congratulations on her award.
“May this honor help us get closer to PEACE and help Venezuela leave behind its pain and regain the freedom and democracy it has fought for for so long,” Capriles wrote on X.
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