Venezuelan opposition leader Machado will not attend Peace Prize ceremony

Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado will not attend the Oslo ceremony; her daughter will accept the award. Machado, recognized for promoting democracy in Venezuela, has been largely absent from public life and barred from running against President Maduro

Oslo: The head of the Nobel Institute said Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado will not attend the awards ceremony in Oslo on Wednesday.

Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken told public broadcaster NRK the Venezuelan opposition leader was not in the Norwegian capital on the day of the ceremony and her daughter will accept the prize on Machado’s behalf.

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A day earlier, a news conference that Machado was expected to attend was canceled. She last appeared in public 11 months ago.

The 58-year-old’s win for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in her South American nation was announced on Oct. 10, and she was described as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

Machado won an opposition primary election and intended to challenge President Nicolás Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government barred her from running for office. Retired diplomat Edmundo González took her place.