After 16 months in hiding, opposition leader María Corina Machado reappeared in public in Oslo, the capital of Norway, where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She came out onto the balcony of the Grand Hotel at 2:30 AM local time and from there greeted her supporters, who had waited for her appearance for several hours. Machado sang her country's anthem accompanied by her fellow citizens, and shortly after came down to greet them, took photos, and even jumped the security fence to get closer to them, who greeted her enthusiastically and chanted "Freedom, freedom...". "This prize does not close a story, it propels it. It reminds us that truth prevails, that the struggle is alive and that our freedom is closer than ever," she said. "It was an honor" to hear her own Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech delivered by her daughter, said the former Venezuelan presidential candidate, adding on her X account: "this is the story of a people and their long march towards freedom". "What an honor to hear my Nobel Peace Prize 2025 acceptance speech in the voice of my daughter, and to know that very soon I can hug her and my family again," she added. According to The Wall Street Journal, accessed by the Noticias Argentinas agency, Machado had said that "many people risked their lives" to allow her to leave her country, amidst criticism from the Venezuelan ruling party, whose leaders accuse her of fomenting U.S. intervention to remove Maduro from power. It is currently unknown if Machado will be able to return to Venezuela, as her country's ruling party could consider her a "fugitive", while many of her collaborators remain in prison or in hiding after denouncing a supposed fraud in last year's elections, which gave Maduro another term.
