The Nobel peace prize laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, is on her way to Oslo but will not take part in the award ceremony, the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said.
After 24 hours of speculation over whether she would attend, hours before the ceremony was due to start on Wednesday organisers said that although Machado was “safe” and would be present in the Norwegian capital, she would not arrive in time to take part in the event.
Organisers said Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, would accept the award on her behalf at the ceremony which is due to start at 1pm local time and read the speech her mother had planned to deliver in person.
“The Nobel peace prize laureate, María Corina Machado, has done everything in her power to come to the ceremony today. A journey in a situation of extreme danger,” the Norwegian Nobel Institute said in a statement.
“Although she will not be able to reach the ceremony and today’s events, we are profoundly happy to confirm that she is safe and that she will be with us in Oslo.”
Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, told the broadcaster NRK: “We have been confirmed that Machado will be coming to Oslo during the day. Unfortunately, she will not be in time to attend today’s ceremony or other events, but we will celebrate her when she arrives.”
Machado, who has been seen only once in public since going into hiding in August last year, had been expected to attend the ceremony to collect the award. She was also due to attend a press conference on Tuesday until it was postponed and later cancelled at the last minute, with organisers saying they were “in the dark” as to her whereabouts.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, Harpviken had said it had been more difficult than expected to get Machado safely to Norway and that she had not made it to the country.
He said: “She simply lives with a death threat from the regime. It extends beyond Venezuela’s borders, from the regime and the regime’s friends around the world.
“I don’t know where she is now, and there are good reasons for that. This is an oppressive regime that is willing to use absolutely all means against the opposition.”
The presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina and Panama are among those who have travelled to Oslo for the ceremony.
Machado last appeared in public on 9 January at a demonstration in Caracas protesting against the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro for his third term as president. The press conference, traditionally held by the Nobel laureate on the eve of the award ceremony, had been expected to be the 58-year-old’s first public appearance in 11 months.
Her family had already congregated in the Norwegian capital before the ceremony in anticipation of seeing her.
After the postponement of the press conference, her mother, Corina Parisca de Machado, 84, who arrived in Oslo on Monday, said: “There are a lot of emotions now.”
Earlier this month, Machado’s daughter said they had planned “to make the most of the time we have with each other”.
“When we see each other, I’m sure there will be tears and joy and hugs,” Sosa told NRK earlier this month. “I miss hugging her. I miss smelling her and seeing her in person.”
Machado was announced as the winner of this year’s peace prize in October for her dogged struggle to rescue Venezuela from its fate as a “brutal, authoritarian state”.
But her selection for the prize has also drawn criticism among those who object to her close relationship with Donald Trump, the US president. A conservative often described as Venezuela’s Iron Lady, she dedicated the prize in a post on X to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
The US president has ordered a major naval buildup off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and threatened land strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers after a more than three-month military campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Machado’s location is not publicly known but some reports said on Tuesday that she had made it to Europe. There were also suggestions that she may have received help from the US to be smuggled out of Venezuela via Puerto Rico.
Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, said last month that Machado had been accused of “acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred, terrorism” and would be considered a “fugitive” if she travelled to Norway to accept the prize.
“By being outside Venezuela and having numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive,” Saab told AFP.
Maduro refused to accept that he lost to Machado’s ally, Edmundo González, in a presidential election in July 2024 and launched a political crackdown that forced González into exile and Machado underground.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute shared a video of the moment its director woke Machado with the news by phone that she had been awarded the peace prize. “Oh my God!” she said. “I have no words … But I hope you understand that … I am just one person, I certainly don’t deserve this.”
The Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics will receive their prizes at a separate ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Wednesday.
