Nobel Peace Prize 2025: María Corina Machado

Don't get me wrong. She has firmly opposed maduro and is a beacon of hope for many in Venezuela but she hasn't accomplished anything meaningful yet? She is just a career politician that just happens to be in the opposition of the venezuelan goverment when Maduro (a dictator) is in power. But she hasn't done anything extraordinary to merit the award.

Don't get me wrong, but perhaps what was missing was greater media coverage and genuine interest in Venezuela's situation. María Corina Machado orchestrated a HUGE covert months long operation to collect tally sheets from the overwhelming majority of voting machines during the 2024 presidential election. Her team trained poll watchers to demand vote receipts (as legally permitted) then capture and transmit that data through various channels, even from the most remote regions of the country. There are documented cases of people—poll workers and participants in the plan—being imprisoned or even killed for their involvement. Thanks to this operation, the website resultadospresidencialesvenezuela2024.com exists, where venezuelan can verify the actual vote count per candidate, backed by fingerprint records and the serial numbers of both the software and hardware used. These verified results confirm that Edmundo González was the true winner of the election. The data provides undeniable evidence that Nicolás Maduro installed himself as a dictator, with the full support of the national electoral authority, which, to this day, has refused to release the official election results (a procedure that has historically been routine).

You can also verify the results here https://macedoniadelnorte.com/ (a whole story behind this hostname). Again, only possible by the María Corina's huge effort

Sounds right from the playbook of the superpowers, when an oil rich country has a government that doesn't allow them to profit from their oil resources - (1) demonize the current leader and government, (2) Give international publicity and recognition to a politician ideologically friendly to them (3) Destabilise the unfriendly government by launching an internal / external war against them (4) Install the friendly puppet politician as the leader of the country (while shouting "democracy has won", if you are western superpower) (5) Profit!

This comment reads as deeply ignorant and callous toward the treatment of the Venezuelan people by their government. Fully 1/3 of Venezuelans have fled the country due to repression and economic decline due to Maduro’s mismanagement. As someone who reads Spanish I can tell you the the media in non US aligned Latin American countries is regularly reporting on the dictatorship in Venezuela.

Not everything is about oils or some conspiracy of western governments.

> due to repression and economic decline due to Maduro’s mismanagement

Let's be real, sanctions play a big role in the economic decline of Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia isn't a democracy. In fact, it's a very problematic totalitarian regime, where women have limited rights and the royalty has been known to kill enemies. They very much mismanage money, with ridiculous projects, ostentatious lifestyles if you're royalty or the elite, and have the "highest prevalence of modern slavery of all countries in the Arab States region" [1].

Saudi Arabia is doing well economically though because it isn't sanctioned by the USA, and you don't hear bad press about it's totalitarian regime, or corruption, etc. because it's a USA ally.

If the USA cared about how people are treated by their government, they'd be in Sudan or Congo. The USA cares about getting rid of Maduro, so they will make it as difficult as possible for the Venezuelan regime to make money from its oil, while pointing out all that's wrong and blaming Maduro for everything.

I'm not saying things are well in Venezuela, or that Maduro is a good leader. I'm saying this is all part of a playbook that's been successful before, and it's reductionist to not blame the USA for Venezuela's decline.

[1]: https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studie...