Will Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado emerge as face of post-Maduro Venezuela?

As the plot intensified after the US conducted airstrikes across Venezuela and allegedly captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and flew them out of the capital, Caracas, the focus has shifted to Maria Corina Machado, an Opposition leader in the Latin American country who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025.

With a political vacuum emerging in the country, the question that arises is who will rule post-Maduro Venezuela and the 58-year-old Machado, leader of Vente Venezuela, looks closest to that role.

Also read: María Corina Machado: The face of Venezuela’s fight for democracy

Machado, who received the Nobel for her tireless struggle to restore democracy in the Latin American nation and champion the political rights of its people, has been an uncompromising face of Venezuela’s democratic resistance. She stood firm even as the country slipped from an oil-rich democracy into authoritarian rule, organising citizens, exposing election fraud and seeking political accountability.

Machado co-founded Sumate, a civil society movement in the early 2000s to promote transparent elections and citizen oversight. She has been a staunch supporter of the “ballots over bullets” philosophy, and when the regime stopped her from contesting the presidential election in 2024, she united the Opposition behind Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia against Maduro, training several volunteers as election observers.

Also read: US claim of capturing Venezuela's Maduro signals dangerous return to regime-change politics

Machado’s acceptability in elections was visible in 2023 when she won the Opposition’s primary, positioning herself as a strong challenger to Maduro. With the authoritarian rule’s grip loosening with the long-serving president’s exit, she is certain to emerge as someone the country’s politics cannot ignore anymore.

Machado, a symbol against Chavismo

Machado’s supporters see her as a symbol against Chavismo, the ideology based on former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, which was later continued by his protege, Maduro. Her prolonged days in hiding and limited appearances in public have made her image as a dissident leader under threat stronger.

Still early days

That Machado has welcomed international sanctions and the US’s targeting Venezuela in the past, which inevitably puts her in alignment with Washington’s plans to see a favourable regime in Caracas.

Also read: Explained: Why did US attack Venezuela?

While it is still early to say whether she would emerge as the next face of Venezuela before the world, observers could draw a close parallel with Myanmarese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who also won a Nobel Peace Prize and emerged to lead her country plagued by the rule of a military junta, but only briefly.