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A press conference in Oslo with the Nobel peace prize laureate María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader in hiding, has been postponed but should take place later in the day, the Norwegian Nobel Institute has said.
The press conference, traditionally held by the Nobel laureate on the eve of the award ceremony, is expected to be the 58-year-old’s first public appearance in 11 months. Machado last appeared in public on 9 January at a demonstration in Caracas protesting against the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro for his third term as president.
“The press conference with Nobel peace prize laureate María Corina Machado, scheduled for 13:00 CET today at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, will be postponed,” organisers said. “We will inform accredited media of the new time with a minimum of two hours’ notice.”
They said they were “working under the assumption” that Machado “will be present at the press conference”.
Journalists accredited to attend the event received messages marked “urgent” from the committee’s head of media and communication an hour and a half before the scheduled time of access.
A spokesperson for the prize told the Guardian: “We have no information about this now.”
Machado’s family have arrived in the Norwegian capital for Wednesday’s ceremony.
Machado was announced as the winner of this year’s peace prize in October for her dogged struggle to rescue Venezuela from its fate as a “brutal, authoritarian state”.
A conservative often described as Venezuela’s Iron Lady, she dedicated the prize in a post on X to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
The US president has ordered a major naval buildup off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and threatened land strikes against suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers after a more than three-month military campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Machado’s mother, Corina Parisca de Machado, was seen arriving at Oslo airport on Monday. The 84-year-old has not seen her daughter in a year.
“Every day I pray the rosary, I ask God the Father, the Virgin, both together, that we may have María Corina tomorrow,” she told Agence France-Presse. “And if we don’t have her tomorrow, it is because that is God’s will.”
Machado’s two sons and her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, who reportedly arrived at the Grand Hotel in Oslo on Monday night, are also due to attend.
“When we see each other, I’m sure there will be tears and joy and hugs,” Sosa told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK earlier this month. “I miss hugging her. I miss smelling her and seeing her in person. We’re going to make the most of the time we have with each other.”
Machado’s location is not publicly known but some reports say she has made it to Europe and there are suggestions that she may have received help from the US to be smuggled out of Venezuela via Puerto Rico.
Maduro refused to accept he lost to Machado’s ally Edmundo González in a presidential election in July 2024 and launched a political crackdown that forced González into exile and Machado underground.
Not since 2012, when the EU was awarded the peace prize, have so many heads of state planned to attend the ceremony. Among those expected to attend are the presidents of Argentina, Panama, Ecuador and Paraguay.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute shared a video of the moment its director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, woke Machado with the news by phone that she had been awarded the peace prize. “Oh my God!” she said. “I have no words … But I hope you understand that … I am just one person, I certainly don’t deserve this.”
