Sawt Falasteen - Suspense swirls if Nobel peace laureate will attend ceremony

A press conference scheduled for Tuesday with the 58-year-old, who went into hiding in her country in August 2024, was first postponed before finally being cancelled, with no sign of Machado in the Norwegian capital.

No one seemed to know her whereabouts or whether she had managed to leave Venezuela.

"She has said that she will be here for the celebrations," the director of the Nobel Institute, Kristian Berg Harpviken, told AFP on Tuesday evening.

"I don't know how she is travelling, I don't know when she's arriving, but I'm still banking on the fact that she will be here in time for the celebrations," he added.

The ceremony is scheduled to start at 1:00 pm (1200 GMT) at Oslo's City Hall.

Several members of Machado's family were already in the Norwegian capital, as were Latin American heads of state aligned with US President Donald Trump, including Argentine President Javier Milei.

Should Machado make it to Oslo -- where heavy security was visible in parts of the city -- it would be her first public appearance in 11 months.

Machado has accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of stealing the July 2024 election she was banned from standing in, a claim backed by much of the international community.

She went into hiding in her home country in August 2024, and since then has been seen only once in public: on January 9 in Caracas where she protested against Maduro's inauguration for his third term.

The opposition claimed its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, won the election. He now lives in exile, and was also in Oslo for Wednesday's ceremony.

- Nobel Prize by proxy? -

Machado was awarded the Nobel on October 10 for her efforts to bring democracy to Venezuela, challenging Maduro's iron-fisted rule. He has been president since 2013.

Should she not be able to participate in Wednesday's award ceremony, she could be represented by members of her family. Her mother, three sisters and three children are all in Oslo.

"It has happened multiple times in the history of the Peace Prize that the laureate has been prevented from attending the ceremony and on those occasions it's always been the case that close family members of the laureate will receive the prize and give the lecture in the place of the laureate," Harpviken explained.

Venezuela's attorney general, Tarek William Saab, said last month the opposition leader would be considered a "fugitive" if she travelled to Norway to accept the prize.

"By being outside Venezuela and having numerous criminal investigations, she is considered a fugitive," Saab told AFP, adding that she is accused of "acts of conspiracy, incitement of hatred, terrorism".

If Machado does come to Norway, the question then arises of how she would re-enter Venezuela or whether she would potentially be able to lead the opposition from exile.

"She risks being arrested if she returns even if the authorities have shown more restraint with her than with many others, because arresting her would have a very strong symbolic value," said Benedicte Bull, a professor specialised in Latin America at the University of Oslo.

On the other hand, "she is the undisputed leader of the opposition, but if she were to stay away in exile for a long time, I think that would change and she would gradually lose political influence," she added.

While Machado has been hailed by many for her efforts to bring democracy to Venezuela, she has also been criticised by others for aligning herself with Trump, to whom she has dedicated her Nobel Prize.

The Oslo ceremony coincides with a large US military build-up in the Caribbean in recent weeks and deadly strikes on what Washington says are drug smuggling boats.

Maduro insists that the real goal of the US operations -- which Machado has said are justified -- is to topple the government and seize Venezuela's oil reserves.

The Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics will receive their prizes at a separate ceremony in Stockholm on Wednesday.

Y.Shaath--SF-PST