The paradox of Venezuela’s Nobel: Mistaking defiance for democracy

The Nobel Peace Prize has always carried a heavy burden of symbolism. It rewards not just courage, but the kind of courage that advances peace, democracy, and justice.

This year, that symbolism feels particularly fraught. María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leader, has been awarded the Nobel for her struggle against Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.

Yet, while we share the world’s condemnation of Maduro’s corruption, brutality, and systematic destruction of Venezuela’s democratic institutions, we cannot celebrate this choice.

There is no question that Maduro’s rule represents one of the most tragic chapters in Venezuela’s modern history. His government has crushed dissent, jailed opponents, falsified elections, and presided over the collapse of a once-prosperous nation.

More than seven million Venezuelans have fled since 2014, a mass exodus driven by hunger, hyperinflation, and fear. The regime’s violence and cynical manipulation of democratic forms to perpetuate personal power have been rightly denounced. But opposition to tyranny does not compel us to cheer for anyone who happens to oppose it. The moral universe of politics is not binary.

To put it plainly, Machado is an ideologue of the far right. Her vision for Venezuela is a textbook case of radical free-market dogma: an economy stripped of protections, privatised to the bone, and tethered to the whims of international capital. This might be marketed as “freedom”, but in a country where low-income people have borne the heaviest costs of economic collapse, such policies would only deepen inequality and exclusion. Social justice cannot emerge from a bonfire of the welfare state.

More troubling still is Machado’s long record of supporting anti-democratic and interventionist measures. She was one of the signatories of the Carmona Decree during the short-lived 2002 coup that sought to depose Hugo Chávez and dissolve the National Assembly. For someone now lionised as a defender of democracy, that historical stain is not trivial; it reveals a willingness to suspend democratic principles when it suits her political ends.

Her more recent pronouncements have followed the same logic of confrontation over dialogue. Machado has openly called for US military intervention, arguing that “a credible threat of force” is the only way to remove Maduro.

She has backed US attacks on Venezuelan vessels in international waters, and her international alliances read like a who’s who of the global right: support for Donald Trump, admiration for Latin America’s reactionary movements, and close ties with European nationalist parties. These are not the instincts of a democrat-in-waiting; they are the habits of a politician who equates power with righteousness. That she has become the face of Venezuela’s democratic struggle says as much about the world’s hunger for simple stories as it does about the country’s fractured reality. 

The Nobel Committee’s citation praises her “tireless work for democracy”, yet democracy in the 21st century cannot be reduced to mere opposition against tyranny. It must also mean a commitment to pluralism, social equity, and human dignity, the very principles Machado’s ideology undermines. Of course, it is possible to admire Machado’s courage without endorsing her worldview. She has endured harassment, bans from the office, and constant threats. Her persistence in the face of repression deserves recognition. Yet heroism against a dictator does not automatically make one a democrat. History is filled with revolutionaries who, once in power, became mirror images of the regimes they toppled.

Venezuela’s tragedy is that it has been forced into a false choice: between a kleptocratic left-wing autocracy and a neoliberal crusader promising salvation through privatisation and US tutelage. Both visions betray the social foundations of democracy. Between them lies a quieter, more hopeful alternative: the activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and community organisers who have kept alive the dream of a Venezuela that is both free and fair. They work without fanfare, often in exile, often in poverty. They seek neither coups nor miracles, but reconstruction through institutions, reconciliation, and shared dignity. It is these Venezuelans, who fight for democracy and social justice in tandem, who truly deserve the world’s recognition.

The Nobel Peace Prize has often erred on symbolism over substance. But awarding it to Machado risks conflating “opposition” with “peace” and “anti-Maduro” with “pro-democracy”. Venezuela deserves better than this Manichaean narrative. It deserves international solidarity that understands democracy not as the victory of one camp over another but as the collective, painstaking project of rebuilding trust and equity after years of ruin.

True peace requires more than courage against oppression; it requires a moral vision that transcends revenge and resists the seductions of ideology. Machado may be brave, but bravery alone does not make her.

(The author writes about politics, material culture, and economic history)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.