The Venezuelan democratic cause received a huge boost this Friday with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to its leader, María Corina Machado. The Iron Lady in White, so often compared to the Polish Lech Walesa, who received the same prize more than four decades ago for his fight against the communist dictatorship.

"Here we go! From chaos to order, from misery to prosperity, from tyranny to freedom," emphasized the founder of Vente Venezuela (VV), the liberal-conservative party so viciously persecuted by Venezuela's revolutionary regime that more than 100 of its members remain in prison, falsely accused of terrorism, conspiracy, or other alleged Bolivarian crimes, in the hours before the concession.

Among them are several leaders of his close associates, the same ones who call their boss Cori. They all know that Machado"keeps his word": He has always demonstrated a loyalty that can withstand Bolivarian bombs.

María Corina received the news in hiding, where she has remained since early August of last year, when Maduro and the Chavista leaders crushed the cries for freedom of the Venezuelan people with blood and fire, who massively showed their support for the democrats at the polls. Tears of emotion because María Corina knows that her cause is currently at a historic crossroads, with the dictator under pressure like never before from the US naval deployment in the southern Caribbean.

She posted a couple of messages and a letter on Twitter after the news broke. In the Spanish-language tweet, she thanked her allies, including Donald Trump, but the English version was more direct:"I dedicate this award to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!"

US President Donald Trump reposted Machado's message on his Truth Social account.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115350523795713137

He dedicated the letter almost entirely to his people:"To every Venezuelan: this award is yours. It is a recognition of what we have achieved together and a reminder of what is still missing."

Twenty-six years of struggle are behind us, two of them at the forefront of the democratic cause after her landslide victory in the 2023 opposition primaries, with 93% of the vote. Always with the same passion, the same passion she used to challenge Hugo Chávez in Parliament in 2012, when she was already the country's most voted-for deputy and the"supreme commander" was using the famous "eagle doesn't hunt flies" to continue his endless monologue.

The Nobel Peace Prize, a prize extended to the democratic country under revolutionary condemnation, comes at a time when Machado, just turned 58, is experiencing a personal and political maturity close to the liberal center. And she is under constant stress: this very week, the Miraflores Palace and close collaborators attempted to damage her social influence by accusing her of having provoked Washington's measures against Venezuelan emigrants in the US.

Maduro, who calls himself a"warrior of peace," also accuses the Nobel Prize winner of plotting an extermination. In Stockholm, they didn't listen to his rants.

Her radical stance against the revolution has elevated her for the past two years in the minds of her compatriots, weary of the drift and failures of the traditional parties and the negotiations with Chavismo, which has never honored any agreement. Since her victory in the primaries, the Caracas native has become the hope of a country subjugated by the dictatorship. And one of the keys to her success was precisely the creation of an emotional bond that, in the most popular neighborhoods, is reminiscent of the one established with Hugo Chávez during his first victory back in 1998. And all of this without television or radio, where she is censored, or an advertising campaign; simply by traveling from town to town in Venezuela.

The cry for freedom permeated national sentiment like tropical rain, thanks above all to the driving force of change represented by the long-awaited return home of Venezuelans forced to flee their country. Nine million Venezuelans now live scattered across the planet."We're going to bring them back, your children and mine; your family and mine," he promised then, and he continues to do so now.

A Yale graduate and lifelong rich woman, the candidate is the daughter of a prominent iron and aluminum businessman, which reinforces her title of Iron Lady, beyond her initial ideological resemblance to Britain's Margaret Thatcher. At the end of the 19th century, the Machado Zuloagas created La Electricidad de Caracas, a company responsible for supplying energy to the capital, which was eventually nationalized by Chávez.

Always dressed in white, with the slogan"Until the end" as her banner, charged with"spirituality," Machado knew how to restore the opposition's lost popular fervor. On her journey to the political center, she overtook many opposition leaders on matters of gender and LGBT+ rights. She, too, has suffered from machismo, that evil so deeply rooted in Latin American societies.

If there's one thing the VV coordinator also has in abundance, it's courage, the same courage with which she has confronted the Bolivarian Revolution since its inception. She has been arrested and attacked several times; she is one of the most insulted on public channels; photographs of her computers have even been hacked and later shown on Chavista television. On another occasion, a conversation with her mother was recorded and manipulated to attack her on television.