Venezuelan democracy campaigner María Corina Machado has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a post on X, the committee says it has awarded Maria Corina Machado 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”.
The Nobel Peace prize for 2025 goes to a “woman who keeps the flame of democracy going, amidst a growing darkness”.
The committee awarded Machado the prize for being one of the most “extraordinary examples” of courage in Latin America in recent times.
Machado has been a key unifying figure, it added.
“This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy, our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree.
“At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground.”
Trump had been nominated by the likes of Cambodia, Pakistan and Israel, and publicly spoke of his desire to win the award.
But instead of being awarded to someone who seems to be doing their best to get rid of democracy, the Nobel committee recognised someone doing the exact opposite.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, the Nobel Peace Committee’s chairman, was asked if the pressure from Trump and some in the international community had affected the committee’s decision.
In response, Frydnes said that “in the long history” of the Nobel Peace Prize the committee has seen campaigns and “media tension” and it receives thousands of letters each year from people who say “what for them leads to peace”, the BBC reports.
“We base our decision only on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel,” he concludes.
First established in 1895 and first awarded in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five awards established by the will of Swede Alfred Nobel, which rewards people and groups for progressing humanity.
The categories are in Peace, Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature.