María Corina Machado

A Woman of Freedom

María Corina Machado is truly an unusual woman. She comes from a wealthy entrepreneurial family, attended elite schools in her country, and had access to all the privileges of the upper class. Like many of her compatriots, she could be living in exile today, say, in Miami or Madrid—as a wealthy expatriate. But she does not.

What has become of her instead? A spirited, passionate, and charismatic fighter for freedom and democracy, the rule of law, and a market economy in her home country of Venezuela—the Latin American nation where, since Hugo Chávez, a despotic left-wing dictatorship has been in power, rigging elections, living off drug cartels, giving free rein to corruption, and mercilessly persecuting and imprisoning opponents, and which, thanks to a dysfunctional state economy, is responsible for poverty, misery, hyperinflation, and mass unemployment. A despicable system that, under Chávez's successor Nicolás Maduro, has only dragged the country further into the abyss in every respect.

Despite the country's wealth of oil and other resources, eight million Venezuelans have left their homeland – around 30 million remain, a loss of around a quarter of the population. This is an even greater exodus than that from the socialist German Democratic Republic in the decade before the Berlin Wall was built. A human and political disaster. And yet another “socialist” experiment on Latin American soil that has ended in a moral, political, and economic fiasco.

The naturally gifted politician María Corina Machado is fighting against this with all her power—and remarkable cleverness. She has long been a folk heroine who even Nicolás Maduro fears. When her candidacy for the 2024 presidency was banned—she would have been the clear favorite in fair elections—the committed liberal and her party Vente Venezuela, a member party of the Latin American liberal alliance RELIAL and the global umbrella organization Liberal International, nominated the largely unknown intellectual Edmundo González as its candidate. She then led a magnificent election campaign with González, which resulted in his victory of around 73 percent of the vote.

Eine menschliche und staatspolitische Katastrophe! Und wieder mal ein "sozialistisches" Experiment auf lateinamerikanischem Boden, das in einem moralischen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Fiasko geendet ist. Dagegen kämpft das politische Naturtalent María Corina Machado mit all ihren Kräften - und mit Intelligenz! Sie ist dadurch längst zur Volksheldin geworden, die Maduro offenbar Angstzustände beschert. Als daraufhin ihre Kandidatur für die Präsidentschaft 2024 verboten wurde - sie war für faire Wahlen die haushohe Favoritin -, machte die bekennende Liberale mit ihrer Partei Vente Venezuela, einer Mitgliedspartei der lateinamerikanischen Liberalenverbunds RELIAL und der globalen Dachorganisation LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL, den weithin unbekannten Intellektuellen Edmundo González zum Kandidaten. Sie führte sodann mit ihm einen grandiosen Wahlkampf, der zu dessen Sieg führte - mit etwa 73 Prozent der Stimmen.

Und dann kam es, wie es kommen musste: Der Machthaber Nicolás Maduro fälschte das Endergebnis und ließ sich selbst zum Sieger erklären. Er hatte aber die Rechnung ohne die clevere María Corina gemacht. Die hatte nämlich mit etwa einer Million (!) Helfern im Land noch am Wahltag Kopien der "Acta", also der digital erstellten Dokumente der Wahlergebnisse im Großteil der rund 20.000 Wahllokale, sicherstellen lassen. Damit wurde der Wahlbetrug unwiderlegbar aufgedeckt. Sie schuf mit diesem Geniestreich übrigens auch eine Art historischen Präzedenzfall, wie man in der modernen Welt demokratischer Abstimmungen fast jede Wahlfälschung nachweisen kann. Eine geradezu spektakuläre Detektiv-Arbeit in einem politischen Kriminalfall - filmreif!

Needless to say, the inevitable happened in the aftermath: Nicolás Maduro, the man in power, falsified the final election results and declared himself the winner. He, however, made the crucial mistake to underestimated María Corina. With the help of around one million (!) volunteers across the country, she had copies of the “Acta,” the digitally generated documents containing the election results from most of the approximately 20,000 polling stations, secured on election day. This irrefutably exposed the election fraud. With this stroke of genius, she also created a kind of historical precedent for how almost any election fraud can be proven in the modern world of democratic voting. It was nothing short of spectacular detective work in a political crime case – worthy of a movie.

Of course, this could only work because an incredible number of people enthusiastically supported her. And this is exactly what María Corina achieved because, although she had to hide during the election campaign, she suddenly appeared everywhere in the country, sometimes in the back seat of a motor scooter, waving, cheering, and gesturing, or at spontaneous rallies organized by her party, Vente Venezuela.

She showed everyone how to motivate people for democracy. Germany and Europe, should appreciate this — or even better, take a lesson from it. In any case, María Corina Machado's well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize should be celebrated and she should be honored.

But that is not happening at the moment in Germany - quite the opposite, especially in those media outlets that consider themselves left-wing or euphemistically describe themselves as left-liberal. DIE ZEIT, for example, calls the Nobel Prize Committee's decision “delicate.”

One can speculate about the deeper reasons for that: on the one hand, Machado's privileged background, which in itself causes many left-leaning people to turn up their noses in disgust; on the other hand – and probably even more importantly – her liberal political and economic goals, which are directed against a decidedly “left-wing” dictatorship.

Apart from that, there is another cognitive dissonance for left-wingers: Donald Trump. María Corina Machado dedicated the award to him, and of course there are strategic reasons for this. In her fight for freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and a functioning market economy, or in short  against Maduro, she naturally needs the support of the United States, the oldest democracy and most powerful country in the world. She therefore relies specifically on the support of its president, not just from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who nominated María Corina Machado for the prize in August 2024 when he was still a senator. The clever Machado drew the only correct conclusion from this and wisely indulged Trump's vanity, who had hoped for the Nobel Peace Prize, by “dedicating” the prize to him. She is working in the interests of her country, and her own vanity must take a back seat to the nation's goals of freedom.

DIE ZEIT finds this delicate, but I think it's great. And I would like to see more politicians like this, in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.