CARACAS: Venezuelans stood divided Wednesday on the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and on whether she should return home from Oslo.<\/p>\n
Supporters were hopeful she will come back to continue leading the political resistance to President Nicolas Maduro, whose last two re-elections were widely dismissed as fraudulent.<\/p>\n
But detractors labeled her a traitor for backing US actions against Maduro\u2019s regime, and said she would be better off in exile.<\/p>\n
Machado, who had been in hiding in Venezuela for over a year after Maduro\u2019s disputed July 2024 re-election, traveled to Norway but missed the Nobel ceremony.<\/p>\n
Her daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado accepted the peace prize on her behalf Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Nobel officials said Machado was \u201csafe\u201d and would reach Oslo by Thursday at the latest, when she is to hold a press conference.<\/p>\n
Her daughter has insisted Machado would return to Venezuela despite arrest fears. Machado\u2019s former campaign manager also insisted there was \u201cno chance\u201d of her taking up exile.<\/p>\n
Alirio Villegas, a 78-year-old pensioner in Caracas, told AFP if it were him, he would stay away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to see her coming back. This country is tough,\u201d he said. \u201cBut she has to return… she\u2019s the one leading us. If she leaves, what will we do? She\u2019s the one the country wants.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Jazmin Briceno, a 45-year-old teacher, the peace prize was \u201ca good step forward\u201d for Venezuela even as it contends with an economic crisis, mass emigration and fears of US military action against leftist Maduro.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s Venezuelan and she has the right to come back; they can\u2019t prevent it. We\u2019re waiting for her here,\u201d Briceno told AFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CARACAS: Venezuelans stood divided Wednesday on the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and on whether she should return home from Oslo. Supporters were hopeful she will come back to continue leading the political resistance to President Nicolas Maduro, whose last two re-elections were widely dismissed as fraudulent. But detractors labeled …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90860,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90855\/revisions\/90860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}