While some of us will react to who did not win the Nobel Peace Prize this morning, winner Maria Corina Machado is a formidable force for democracy and an inspiration to all of us in these scary times. Via the New York Times:
The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who built a powerful social movement and has been living in hiding since last year, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised “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.”
Ms. Machado emerged from Venezuela’s political sidelines and corralled the country’s fractious opposition behind her before the 2024 election. That followed years of political apathy in Venezuela, where the government of President Nicolás Maduro crushed protests and arrested dissidents, helping to spur an enormous exodus from the country.
She backed an opposition candidate against Mr. Maduro in the presidential race last year, after being banned from running. Mr. Maduro won what was widely regarded as a rigged election, and Ms. Machado went into hiding.
David Scheffer, an international law scholar at Arizona State University, said that in choosing Ms. Machado, the Nobel committee had “elevated a courageous hero of peacemaking — someone who works among her own people to protect them against repression and atrocity crimes in order to shape a more peaceful and democratic world.”
