Diosdado Cabello lashed out against the award and called it an “auction” given “to the highest bidder”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Oslo / Caracas / December 9, 2025 – The press conference Venezuelan opposition leader María Corona Machado was scheduled to give this Tuesday at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, the day before receiving the Peace Prize, has been canceled and it is not possible at this time to predict how and when the former deputy will arrive in the Norwegian capital, the organization said.
The press conference “will not take place today,” said Erik Aasheim, spokesman for the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
“María Corina Machado herself has stated in interviews how complicated the trip to Oslo will be. Therefore, at this time we cannot provide any further information on when and how she will arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony,” which will be celebrated this Wednesday.
“We cannot provide any further information on when and how she will arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.”
The press conference, initially scheduled for 12:00 GMT this Tuesday, was first postponed indefinitely. Finally, due to the opposition leader’s difficulties in reaching the Norwegian capital, the event has been cancelled.
Machado herself, who lives in an unknown location in Venezuela, had confirmed a few days ago to the Nobel Institute that she would travel to the Norwegian capital to receive the prize.
This Tuesday, her sister, Clara Machado Parisca, said in an interview from Oslo with the Colombian radio station Blu Radio that the Nobel laureate intends to be there and that they are waiting for her “with faith that she will arrive very soon.”
“Her wish is to be here and collect the award. That’s all I can tell you at this time. I don’t know anything else,” she added.
Her mother, Corina Parisca, her sister, and her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, are already in Oslo and will be accompanied at the ceremony by her two sons, Ricardo Sosa Machado and Henrique Sosa Machado. “We are here for her, because of her, and with the full conviction that she will arrive and will be here to receive the award,” her sister added.
It is unknown how and when the opposition leader will leave Venezuela, amid the air connectivity crisis that Caracas is experiencing, without international connections due to the cancellations of several airlines that withdrew their flights because of warnings from US authorities about the danger of flying over the region, following Washington’s military deployment in the Caribbean.
In addition to her family circle, representatives of the Latin American right are also traveling to Oslo to support the opposition leader.
The whereabouts of the Venezuelan opposition leader, who has been living in hiding in her country since the beginning of this year, remain unknown, and her appearance in Oslo would be her first in public since January 2025.
Argentine President Javier Milei took off yesterday on a special flight, while his Paraguayan counterpart, Santiago Peña, will arrive in the Norwegian capital on Wednesday for the official award ceremony.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino is already in Oslo, where he met with Machado’s family.
Also expected to attend tomorrow’s ceremony at Oslo City Hall is the Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, exiled in Spain. He ran against Nicolás Maduro in the July 2024 elections when Machado was barred from running.
The secretary general of Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, lashed out on Monday against the award, calling it an “auction” given “to the highest bidder”: “With respect to Oslo, I don’t know. We know nothing about that, we didn’t participate in that auction,” he affirmed yesterday.
Cabello preferred to focus on the pressure exerted by the United States with its unprecedented military deployment in the Caribbean and denounced the fact that the International Criminal Court has not ruled on Washington’s attacks against boats allegedly linked to drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
“The International Criminal Court is rude; its silence on massacres in different parts of the world is gross,” he added.
The opposition team conducted a detailed analysis of the Venezuelan Army and concluded that only a “limited” purge would be necessary, since only 20% of the officers are “irredeemable.”
He also rejected Panama’s offer to mediate between Caracas and Washington amid tensions between the two countries over the Panamanian government’s support for the Venezuelan opposition. “What the United States says goes,” he stated.
Amid these tensions, the Washington Post revealed that the Trump Administration reviewed the plans of Machado and her team in the event of Maduro’s departure from power, a plan that proposes creating forces to stabilize the country within the first 100 hours and 100 days after the current president’s exit and holding elections during the first year.
According to the newspaper, the opposition team conducted a detailed analysis of the Venezuelan Army and concluded that only a “limited” purge would be necessary, since only 20% of the officers are “irredeemable” and the rest are either opposed to Maduro or apolitical.
This information adds to Trump’s comments that he could soon begin ground attacks against Venezuela, fueling doubts about the scope of a possible Washington intervention under the guise of combating drug trafficking.
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