Nobel Lecture as
Authored by Laureate Maria Corina Machado
{Fair Use
Abridged)
delivered 10
December 2025, Oslo, Norway
[UNAUTHENTICATED AND ABRIDGED]
Venezuela was born of audacity, shaped by peoples
and cultures intertwined. From Spain we inherited a language, a culture, and a
faith that merged with ancestral Indigenous and African roots.
In 1811, we wrote the first constitution in the Spanish-speaking world, one of
the earliest republican constitutions on Earth, affirming the radical idea that
every human being carries a sovereign dignity. This constitution enshrined
citizenship, individual rights, religious liberty, and separation of powers.
Our ancestors carried liberty on their backs. They crossed an entire continent,
from the banks of the Orinoco to the heights of the Potosí, to help give rise to
societies of free and equal citizens, out of the conviction that freedom is
never whole unless it is shared.
From the beginning, we believed something simple and immense: that all human
beings are born to be free. That conviction became our national soul.
In the twentieth century, the earth opened: in 1922, the Reventón in La Rosa
erupted for nine days: a fountain of oil and possibility.
In peace, we turned that sudden wealth into an engine for knowledge and
imagination.
Through the ingenuity of our scientists, we eradicated disease. We built
universities of global prestige, museums and concert halls, sent thousands of
young Venezuelans abroad through scholarships, trusting that free minds would
return as transformation. Our cities glowed with the kinetic art of Cruz-Diez
and Soto.
We forged steel, aluminum, and hydropower—proof that Venezuela could build
anything it dared to envision.
Venezuela also became a refuge.
We opened our arms to migrants and exiles from every corner of the earth:
Spaniards fleeing civil war; Italians and Portuguese escaping poverty and
dictatorship; Jews after the Holocaust; Chileans, Argentinians, and Uruguayans
escaping military regimes; Cubans escaping communism and families from Colombia,
Lebanon and Syria seeking peace.
We gave them homes, schools, safety. And they became Venezuelans.
This is Venezuela.
********************
By the time we recognized how fragile our
institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow the
democracy, was elected president. Many thought charisma could substitute the
rule of law.
From 1999 onward, the regime dismantled our democracy: violating the
Constitution, falsifying our history, corrupting the military, purging
independent judges, censoring the press, manipulating elections, persecuting
dissent, and ravaging our extraordinary biodiversity.
Oil wealth was not used to uplift, but to bind.
Washing machines and refrigerators were handed out on national television to
families living on dirt floors, not as progress but as spectacle.
Apartments meant for social housing were handed to a select few as conditional
rewards for obedience.
And then came the ruin:
Obscene corruption; historic looting. During the regime’s rule, Venezuela
received more oil revenue than in the previous century combined. And it was all
stolen.
Oil money became a tool to purchase loyalty abroad while at home criminal and
international terrorist groups fused themselves to the state.
The economy collapsed by more than 80%.
Poverty surpassed 86%.
Nine million Venezuelans were forced to flee.
These are not statistics; they are open wounds.
********************
On October 22, 2023, against all odds, Venezuela awoke.
The diaspora, a third of our nation, reclaimed its right to vote.
The son who left cast his ballot alongside the mother who stayed.
Lines stretched for blocks. Turnout was so overwhelming that ballots ran out. We
trusted the people, and they trusted us back.
What began as a mechanism to legitimize leadership became the rebirth of a
nation’s confidence in itself. That day, I received a mandate: a responsibility
that transcended any individual ambition. I felt humbled and profoundly aware of
the weight with which I had been entrusted.
Venezuela will breathe again.
We will open prison doors and watch thousands who were unjustly detained step
into the warm sun, embraced at last by those who never stopped fighting for
them.
We will see grandmothers settle children on their laps to tell them stories not
of distant forefathers, but of their own parents’ courage.
We will see our students debate ideas passionately and without fear, their
voices rising freely at last.
We will hug again. Fall in love again. Hear our streets fill with laughter and
music.
All the simple joys the world takes for granted will be ours.
My dear Venezuelans, the world has marveled at what we have achieved. And soon
it will witness one of the most moving sights of our time: our loved ones coming
home — and I will stand again on the Simón Bolívar bridge, where I once cried
among the thousands who were leaving, and welcome them back into the luminous
life that awaits us.
Because in the end, our journey towards freedom has always lived inside us.
We are returning to ourselves. We are returning home.
