Nobel Institute calls off Machado press conference ahead of Peace Prize ceremony

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By Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik

OSLO, Dec 9 (Reuters) – The Norwegian Nobel Institute cancelled a planned press conference on Tuesday with this year’s Peace Prize laureate, Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, ahead of Wednesday’s award ceremony in Oslo.

Machado, 58, has been subject to a decade-long travel ban imposed by the government of President Nicolas Maduro and has been in hiding for more than a year. The institute said it did not know Machado’s current whereabouts.

“I know that she wants to come and that she is en route but that’s all I know,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, the institute’s director and permanent secretary to the award committee.

It is not yet clear if she will reach Oslo in time for the award ceremony, he added.

“We will make sure that it’s a worthy ceremony that recognises this year’s laureate, casting a spotlight on the situation in Venezuela and the importance democracy has for peace,” he told public broadcaster NRK.

The award ceremony is due to take place on Wednesday at 1 p.m. (1200 GMT) at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja and at least four Latin American heads of state, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa.

A press conference had originally been scheduled in Oslo for 1200 GMT on Tuesday, but was at first delayed to an unspecified time. The institute later said the event had been cancelled.

The laureate “has herself stated in interviews how challenging the journey to Oslo, Norway will be,” the Nobel institute said in its statement. 

ALIGNED WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Machado for her fight against what it called a dictatorship.

She has aligned with hawks close to U.S. President Donald Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, despite doubts raised by the U.S. intelligence community.

When she won the award in October, Machado dedicated the award in part to Trump, who has himself said that he deserved the honour.

An industrial engineer, Machado was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election despite having won the opposition’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won, and the opposition has published ballot- box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Terje Solsvik, Leonhard Foeger, Miguel Pereira, Tom Little and Ilze Filks, editing by Howard Goller and Gareth Jones)