Hailed as "la libertadora", in an allusion to Venezuelan independence hero Simon "The Liberator" Bolivar, Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work.
"Is this for real? I can't believe it!," she said in conversation with exiled opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
She was barred from challenging Maduro in July 2024 elections and went into hiding after the vote, which the opposition and much of the international community accuses Maduro of stealing.
But she remained a tireless democracy campaigner on social media, where she regularly posts videos assuring Venezuelans that change is near at hand.
Clad in jeans and a white shirt, Machado toured Venezuela last year to campaign for an end to a quarter century of increasingly repressive Socialist rule.
Her rousing speeches instill quasi-religious fervor in her supporters, many of whom are moved to tears by the sight of their plucky "liberator."
She won an opposition primary with 90 percent of votes cast in 2023, but was promptly declared ineligible by authorities loyal to Maduro.
Machado accepted to take a political back seat and campaign instead for her last-minute stand-in: little-known ex-diplomat Gonzalez Urrutia.
The opposition's tally of ballots from polling stations showed Gonzalez Urrutia easily defeating Maduro in the election -- but the Socialist incumbent was proclaimed the winner, sparking deadly riots, which were brutally repressed.
Gonzalez Urrutia went into exile after a bounty was placed on his head. Machado stayed behind to lead the resistance.
After months of hiding she briefly re-emerged on the eve of Maduro's inauguration for a third term in January to address an opposition rally.
"We are not afraid," she declared, before fleeing cloak-and-dagger style on the back of a motorcycle to avoid arrest.
- US strikes -
The Nobel announcement comes at a critical moment in a tense standoff between the United States and Venezuela.
President Donald Trump has ordered a major military deployment in the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela, and greenlighted strikes on suspected drug boats that have killed at least 21 people in recent weeks.
Washington, which recognized Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's rightful leader, accuses Maduro of leading a drug cartel.
Machado has backed the US military pressure on Maduro as a "necessary measure" towards a democratic transition in Venezuela.
"Today, more than ever we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our main allies to achieve freedom and democracy," she wrote Friday on X.
- 'Bring our children home'
An engineer by training, Caracas-born Machado entered politics in 2002 at the head of the association Sumate (Join us), pushing for a referendum to recall Maduro's mentor, the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
She was accused of treason over the referendum call and received death threats, prompting her to send her two young sons and daughter to live abroad.
In parliament, she confronted the firebrand Chavez.
"Expropriating is stealing," she told him in 2012, referring to his seizures of hundreds of domestic and foreign-owned businesses.
Banned from flying during last year's election campaign, she criss-crossed the country by road, wearing rosary beads around her neck.
"We're going to liberate the country and bring our children home," she said, vowing an end to Maduro's rule -- and with it a severe economic crisis that has prompted over seven million people to emigrate from the once prosperous petro-state.
In October, she and Gonzalez Urrutia were awarded the European Union's top human rights prize for having "fearlessly upheld" the values of justice, democracy and the rule of law.
Five milestones in career of Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado
Caracas (AFP) Oct 10, 2025 -
From her first, highly-publicized broadside against late Socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez to winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, here are five milestones in the career of Venezuelan pro-democracy activist Maria Corina Machado.
- 'Expropriation is theft' -
In January 2012, during then-president Chavez's marathon annual address to parliament, in which he justifies the expropriations of hundreds of foreign- and Venezuelan-owned businesses, a voice pipes up.
"Expropriation is theft," Machado, an engineer and little-known MP, says.
Chavez dismisses her as a political minnow and refuses to debate with her, declaring: "An eagle doesn't hunt flies."
But the challenge does not go unnoticed.
Many Venezuelans praise her courage in standing up to the all-powerful Chavez, and she becomes a political celebrity overnight.
- Cast out -
In March 2014, she is stripped of her parliamentary mandate for attending a meeting of the Organization of American States as an "alternate ambassador" for Panama.
Panama had lent her the title to allow her to address the OAS assembly, where she denounces human rights violations during street protests to demand the removal of Chavez's successor, President Nicolas Maduro.
Accused of promoting violence, Machado is barred from holding public office for 12 months. Seen as a radical, her influence wanes.
- Reviving the opposition -
She returns to the frontlines after a failed attempt to oust Maduro in 2019 in the aftermath of his first re-election, which was marred by fraud allegations.
The movement is led by parliament speaker Juan Guaido, whom the United States and dozens of other countries recognize as "interim president" but Maduro sees off the attempt to depose him, with the support of the military.
With opposition morale at rock bottom, and its leadership divided, Machado steps in.
She pushes for an opposition primary to choose Maduro's opponent in July 2024 presidential elections.
She sweeps the boards in the 2023 primary with 92 percent of the votes cast by more than two million people.
The win consolidates her as opposition leader but she is barred from contesting the election by authorities loyal to Maduro.
- The power behind the candidate -
After a failed bid to have her ineligibility overturned Machado designates elderly diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia to replace her on the presidential ballot.
Gonzalez Urrutia shuns the limelight, as Machado crisscrosses the country to campaign for him, drawing huge crowds of fervent supporters.
Hope of a change at the top fizzle when Maduro is proclaimed winner of the July 28, 2024, election but the electoral commission never gives a detailed vote breakdown, claiming it is the victim of "massive cyber attack."
The opposition accuses Maduro of fraud, publishing its own tallies from individual voting stations that show its candidate winning nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Only a handful of countries, including allies Russia and China, recognize Maduro's win.
The United States proclaims Gonzalez Urrutia the country's president-elect.
- Going underground -
The crackdown on protests that erupt over Maduro's re-election claims at least 24 lives.
Around 2,400 people are detained.
Gonzalez Urrutia goes into exile in Spain but Machado stays behind to lead the resistance.
She goes into hiding, saying she fears for her life, re-emerging briefly on the back of a truck to address an opposition rally on the eve of Maduro's inauguration for a third term.
She continues trying to rally the opposition with defiant videos posted on social media and backs a campaign of US military pressure on Venezuela.
On October 10, she becomes the first Venezuelan to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes lauds her as "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times."
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