Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has not yet arrived in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

BarcelonaThe Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado Mariano Machado will not attend Wednesday's ceremony at Oslo City Hall where she was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. According to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, the director of the Nobel Institute, Kristian Berg Harpivken, stated: "I don't know where Machado is, but she is not in Norway." The politician has been living in hiding since August 2024 and was expected in the Nordic capital yesterday for a press conference prior to the award ceremony, which was ultimately canceled. Her participation in the ceremony, after not having been seen in public since January, would have represented a symbolic victory against the threats from Nicolás Maduro's government. in the midst of an escalation with the United States

Finally, it will be Machado's daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, who will accept the award on her behalf and deliver the acceptance speech. Also in the Norwegian capital are her mother, Corina Parisca, her sister, and the laureate's other two children. Besides Machado's family, several prominent figures from the Venezuelan opposition have traveled to Oslo. Among them is Edmundo González Urrutia, a candidate in last year's presidential elections and in exile in Spain since September 2024. Also present, at the laureate's invitation, are the presidents of Panama, José Raúl Mulino; Argentina, Javier Milei; and the presidents of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, are also expected to arrive. The four Latin American presidents will be received in audience this Wednesday by King Harald V of Norway, following the award ceremony, and will then meet separately with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

A story of absent award winners

As is to be expected with an award that recognizes commitment to freedoms and human rights, it is not the first time a Nobel Peace Prize laureate has not attended the ceremony to accept it. When the Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, then imprisoned, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, no one went to collect the prize. A photograph of him was placed in the chair designated for him, and the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read his acceptance speech. In 2022, however, the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatsky, one of the three Nobel laureates that year who was in prison, was represented by his wife, Natallia Pinchuk. And when the Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, also imprisoned, won in 2023, it was her children who traveled to Oslo to accept the prize and read her speech.