”Operation gyllene dynamit” tog Machado till Oslo – mycket gick snett

María Corina Machado Parisca (born 7 October 1967) is a Venezuelan politician, activist, and prominent leader of the opposition to the administrations of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. She served as a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela from 2011 to 2014, and has run as a candidate in presidential elections. An industrial engineer with a master's degree in finance, Machado began her political career as a founder of the vote-monitoring organization Súmate. She is the National Coordinator of the political party Vente Venezuela and ran in the 2012 opposition presidential primary, which she lost to Henrique Capriles. During the 2014 Venezuelan protests, she played a leading role in organizing demonstrations against Maduro's government. In 2023, Machado won the opposition primary to become the unity candidate for the 2024 presidential election. The Venezuelan government subsequently barred her from running in the election. She named Corina Yoris as a replacement candidate, who was later replaced by Edmundo González. The opposition presented vote tallies, claiming that González won the election in a landslide, while the government-run National Electoral Council claimed victory for Maduro without presenting evidence. Shortly after the 28 July election, Machado announced that she had gone into hiding, citing fears for her life and freedom under the Maduro government. In 2025, Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "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". She was named one of BBC's 100 Women in 2018, and listed among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2025. In 2024, Machado received the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize (shared with González) for representing Venezuelans fighting for democracy.