OSLO: María Corina Machado, a prominent democracy campaigner and opposition leader in Venezuela, has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Machado, who has largely remained in hiding since last year’s presidential elections, was recognized “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” and “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

The chairman of the Nobel Committee described her as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”

While US President Donald Trump had publicly campaigned for Machado to win the award, Nobel nominations had already closed in January, at the start of his second term.