Maria Corina Machado Earns Nobel Peace Prize; Self-Serving Dictators Need Not Apply

I am ashamed to live in a nation whose authoritarian, anti-democratic ruler claims he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than the actual winner, Maria Corina Machado, a woman fighting for democracy against the dictatorial regime of her Venezuela.

Anyone who personally campaigns for the Nobel Peace Prize is working for himself, not for peace, and does not deserve a Nobel. That idea is built into the Nobel Peace Prize criteria, which exclude self-nomination. The Norwegian Nobel Committee accepts nominations from the following individuals:

1. Members of national assemblies and national governments (cabinet members/ministers) of sovereign states as well as current heads of state
2. Members of The International Court of Justice in The Hague and The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague
3. Members of l’Institut de Droit International
4. Members of the International Board of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
5. University professors, professors emeriti and associate professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology, and religion; university rectors and university directors (or their equivalents); directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
6. Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
7. Members of the main board of directors or its equivalent of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
8. Current and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (proposals by current members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after 1 February)
9. Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee

[Nobel Prize Outreach, “Nomination and Selection of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates,” retrieved 2025.10.11]

Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel dictated in his November 27 1895 will that each year’s peace prize be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee says working for peace requires working for democracy:

Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace. However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence. The Venezuelan regime’s rigid hold on power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarisation. In 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.

In its long history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has honoured brave women and men who have stood up to repression, who have carried the hope of freedom in prison cells, on the streets and in public squares, and who have shown by their actions that peaceful resistance can change the world. In the past year, Ms Machado has been forced to live in hiding. Despite serious threats against her life she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions of people.

When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended – with words, with courage and with determination.

Maria Corina Machado meets all three criteria stated in Alfred Nobel’s will for the selection of a Peace Prize laureate. She has brought her country’s opposition together. She has never wavered in resisting the militarisation of Venezuelan society. She has been steadfast in her support for a peaceful transition to democracy.

Maria Corina Machado has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace. She embodies the hope of a different future, one where the fundamental rights of citizens are protected, and their voices are heard. In this future, people will finally be free to live in peace [Nobel Prize Outreach, “Announcement, Nobel Peace Prize 2025,” 2025.10.10].

Nominating Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize would be like nominating Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize… which happened once, in 1939, when dedicated antifascist Swedish parliamentarian Erik Brandt riffed on his colleagues’ nomination of appeaser Neville Chamberlain with this ironic pitch for the Führer:

To the Norwegian Nobel Committee

I hereby humbly suggest that the Peace Prize for 1939 is awarded the German Chancellor and Führer Adolf Hitler, a man, who in the opinion of millions of people, is a man who more than anyone in the world has deserved this highly respected reward. Authentic documents reveal that in September 1938 world peace was in great danger; it was only a matter of hours before a new European war could break out. The man who during this dangerous time saved our part of the world from this terrible catastrophe was without no doubt the great leader of the German people. In the critical moment he voluntarily did not let weapons speak although he had the power to start a world war.

By his glowing love for peace, earlier documented in his famous book Mein Kampf – next to the Bible perhaps the best and most popular piece of literature in the world – together with his peaceful achievement – the annexation of Austria-Adolf Hitler has avoided the use of force by freeing his countrymen in Sudetenland and making his fatherland big and powerful. Probably Hitler will, if unmolested and left in peace by war mongers, pacify Europe and possibly the whole world.

Sadly there still are a great number of people who fail to see the greatness in Adolf Hitler´s struggle for peace. Based on this fact I would not have found the time right to nominate Hitler as a candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize had it not been for a number of Swedish parliamentarians who have nominated another candidate, namely the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This nomination seems to be poorly thought. Although it is true that Chamberlain through his generous understanding of Hitler´s struggle for pacification has contributed to the saving of world peace, the last decision was Hitler´s and not Chamberlains! Hitler and no one else is first and foremost to be thanked for the peace which still prevails in the greater part of Europe; and this man is also the hope for peace in the future.

As Chamberlains obviously can claim his share of the peace making, he could possibly have a smaller part of the Peace Prize. But the most correct thing to do is not to put another name beside the name of Adolf Hitler and thereby throwing a shadow on him. Adolf Hitler is by all means the authentic God-given fighter for peace, and millions of people all over the world put their hopes in him as the Prince of Peace on earth.

Stockholm, January 27, 1939 [Erik Brandt, quoted in Asle Sveen, “Hitler as a Nobel Laureate?” Nobel Peace Center, 2021.01.29]

Maria Corina Machado is a true fighter for peace and democracy. To say that America’s current dictator fights for anything other than his own glorification is, like Brandt’s 1939 nomination of Hitler, an ugly joke.

p.s. 1:

Erik Brandt was interviewed by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Morgonposten. Here he explained that the nomination of Hitler was meant to be ironical. The nomination of Chamberlain provoked him to nominate Hitler as a provocation against Hitler and Nazism. The result of the Munich Agreement was that the western powers stabbed Czechoslovakia in the back by handing over Sudetenland to achieve peace. Nor Chamberlain or Hitler deserved a Peace Prize. In a letter to the editor of the anti-Nazi newspaper Trots Allt after the outbreak of WWII in the autumn of 1939, Brandt wrote that by nominating Hitler he wanted to: ”by the use of irony suggest a Peace Prize to Hitler and by that nail him to the wall of shame as enemy number one of peace in the world..” [Sveen, 2021.01.29].

p.s. 2: Contrary to his claim in his rambling harangue to the United Nations on September 23, the American fascist has not “ended seven wars”:

Trump played a role in a number of peace deals that have recently eased conflicts between some of these countries, sometimes using the threat of tariffs or military action. But many of the agreements are temporary, fragile, or have yet to be implemented. In some cases, leaders dispute that Trump played a deescalatory role. In others, there’s little evidence that a potential war was brewing. Fighting continues between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and Cambodia and Thailand [Louis Jacobson and Samantha Putterman, “At UN, Donald Trump Repeats That He Ended 7 Wars. That’s Still Misleading,” Politifact, 2025.09.23].