Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition politician who was barred from standing in last year’s presidential election, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

In a post on the social media platform X on Friday, the Nobel Committee said it had decided to award the prize to Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.

Announcing Machado’s win in Oslo, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Nobel Committee, said the award had gone “to a brave and committed champion of peace, to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness”.

He added that she meets “all the criteria” laid out by Alfred Nobel for the prize, which states that the prize shall be given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

Machado – who is known as the “Iron Lady” in Venezuela and is only the 20th woman out of 143 laureats awarded since the start of the prize in 1901 – said she was “in shock” after she learned she had been awarded the prize, according to a video sent by her press team to the AFP news agency.

“I’m in shock!” she is heard saying by telephone to Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who replaced her as the candidate in the last presidential election after she was barred from running.

“We’re shocked with joy,” said Gonzalez.

Here’s what we know about Maria Corina Machado:

Who is Maria Corina Machado?

Maria Corina Machado Parisca, 58, is the leader of the Venezuelan opposition party, Vente Venezuela. Machado campaigns for transparent democracy, advocates for liberal economic reforms, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises such as PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil company. She also supports the creation of welfare programmes aimed at aiding the country’s poorest.

Born on October 7, 1967, in Caracas, the eldest of four daughters, she has a degree in industrial engineering and a Master’s degree in finance.

The mother of three entered politics in 2002 as cofounder of the volunteer civil association called Sumate, which seeks to unite people amid polarisation under Nicolas Maduro’s rule.

At Sumate, she also led a referendum in 2002 to recall Hugo Chavez, the country’s president at the time, from office, over what Sumate claimed were his authoritarian policies. For this, Machado was accused of treason and her family received death threats from Chavez supporters, forcing her to send her children to live abroad.

But Machado has remained resilient in her opposition to Maduro, who has been in power since 2013.

In 2023, she won the Venezuelan opposition’s presidential primary after taking a decisive lead, placing her in a prime position to challenge longtime socialist leader Maduro at elections in 2024.

But a year later, Venezuela’s Supreme Justice Tribunal upheld a ban that prevented Machado from holding office. Attorney General Tarek Saab had accused some members of Machado’s Vente Venezuela party of being among 11 people who he said attempted to rob a military weapons arsenal in 2023 before a planned assault on a pro-Maduro state governor. The court also upheld claims that Machado had supported US sanctions, had been involved in corruption, and had lost money for Venezuela’s foreign assets, including United States-based oil refiner Citgo and chemicals company Monomeros, which operates in Colombia.

Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia replaced her as presidential candidate for the opposition bloc. Machado, however, continued campaigning far and wide for her proxy.

Today, she is isolated in Venezuela as nearly all of her senior advisers have been detained or forced to leave the country following threats by Maduro and his supporters, who oppose anyone who challenges his rule. Urrutia is understood to be in exile in Spain but some rumours suggest he is currently touring other countries in Latin America.

Following the July 2024 election, after which Maduro declared victory despite the the result being disputed by the opposition, Machado announced that she would be going into hiding within Venezuela, since she feared for her life under Maduro.

Where is Machado now?

It is not known where she currently is. In August 2024, she briefly emerged from hiding to join her supporters who were protesting in the streets of Caracas against the contested national election results.

“Just as it took us a long time to achieve electoral victory, now comes a stage that we take day by day, but we have never been as strong as today, never,” Machado, who always arrives at protests dressed in white, told her supporters in Caracas.

In January this year, however, when she reappeared from exile to join a protest before Maduro’s presidential inauguration, she was briefly arrested before being released.

“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united,” Machado shouted from atop a truck as she waved a Venezuelan flag in front of a few hundred protesters immediately before her arrest.

Maduro’s government, which has also accused Machado of leading a “conspiracy” against Maduro, quickly denounced the incident as an attempt to dent the administration’s reputation.

“The tactic of media distraction is not new, so no one should be surprised. Less so coming from fascists who are the architects of deception,” Information Minister Freddy Nanez wrote on the social media messaging platform, Telegram.

While Machado has returned to hiding, she remains in touch with her supporters through social media platforms.

In May this year, she claimed victory in the country’s parliamentary elections, even though Maduro’s ruling coalition was officially declared the winner. Machado wrote on X that the election was an “enormous farce that the regime is trying to stage to bury its defeat” in last year’s election.

Last year, the European Union awarded its top human rights prize to Machado along with Urrutia.

The European Parliament said the winners of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought were “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.