Maduro Regime Claims Opposition Leader Machado Offered Venezuela’s Gas in Exchange for Nobel Peace Prize

Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, widely regarded as the second most powerful figure in the Maduro government, claimed that opposition leader and newly minted Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado received the award through political deals and promises to foreign interests.

Speaking during his weekly television program, Cabello alleged that Machado’s Nobel recognition “was bought” through negotiations involving U.S. and Norwegian figures dating back to 2024. He said Republicans including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Senator Rick Scott, and UN Ambassador Mike Waltz had “bet on Machado” as a potential operator in Venezuela.

“Machado negotiated her Nobel Peace Prize under the promise of delivering Venezuela’s riches and control of the country’s gas to Norway,” Cabello said. He further accused her of being backed by “money from ExxonMobil” and by Thor Halvorssen Mendoza, a Norwegian-Venezuelan businessman and president of the Oslo Freedom Forum. “Halvorssen wants to enter the gas business and sees Machado as his only easy way in,” he added.

The remarks come days after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Machado the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for what it called her “persistent, peaceful defense of democracy and human rights under authoritarian rule.”

Machado, the longtime leader of the opposition party Vente Venezuela, was recognized internationally for continuing to mobilize nonviolent political resistance despite repeated bans from public office and accusations by Caracas of treason.

Cabello dismissed the award as politically motivated, calling it “part of a revenge plan by the Cuban-American clan against Donald Trump” and “a strategy to breathe life into a moribund opposition.” During his televised speech, he mocked the decision, referring to the award as the “Mercado Libre Peace Prize” and claiming Machado sought to “create chaos to justify a foreign intervention.”

He also alleged that Machado planned to “fill Venezuela with blood” around the upcoming canonization of José Gregorio Hernández, a patron saint in the country, calling on authorities to prepare for “violent provocations.”

The Maduro regime announced the closure of Venezuela’s embassy in Oslo earlier this week, signaling diplomatic retaliation against Norway, which has long served as a mediator in Venezuelan political negotiations.

Cabello concluded his remarks by criticizing the United States and its intelligence operations in the region. “The CIA has promoted coups, assassinations, and dirty wars across the Americas,” he said, adding, “They can buy cheap consciences, but not the dignity of the Venezuelan people.”