Sawt Falasteen - Venezuela opposition chief Machado to miss Nobel Peace Prize award

Machado has only been seen once in public since going underground in August last year amidst a tense showdown with President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela's attorney general has said the 58-year-old would be considered a "fugitive" if she left the country to accept the award.

It was not known in the hours before the ceremony whether Machado was in the country for the event due to start at 1:00pm (1200 GMT) but Nobel Institute spokesperson Erik Aasheim finally confirmed to AFP that she would not be there.

"It will be her daughter Ana Corina Machado who will receive the prize in her mother's name," Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken told Norway's NRK radio. "Her daughter will give the speech that Maria Corina herself wrote."

Harpviken said he "simply" did not know where Machado was.

Her mother and three daughters, and some Latin American heads of state, including Argentine President Javier Milei, are in Oslo for the prize-giving at Oslo's City Hall.

- 'Fugitive' laureate -

While organisers said Machado had previously indicated she would attend, suspicions had already been raised when a traditional press conference with the award winner on Tuesday was first postponed and then cancelled.

Machado has accused Maduro of stealing Venezuela's July 2024 election which she was banned from. Her claim is backed by much of the international community.

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

Since going into hiding, her only public appearance was 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 on Wednesday.

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

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".

"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 this week.

Doubts had been raised about how Machado would return to Venezuela.

"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 US President Donald Trump, to whom she has dedicated her Nobel Prize.

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

K.AbuDahab--SF-PST