CARACAS, October 10. /TASS/. A Venezuelan lawmaker has condemned the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuelan far-right opposition.

"The fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Machado is outrageous and shameful," Willian Rodriguez, a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly and vice president of the Podemos party, told TASS.

According to Rodriguez, the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its credibility in recent years. "When we compare nun Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s president, who were awarded this prize to what we see today, we understand that the Nobel Peace Prize is now awarded to proponents of war, who have thousands of innocent victims on their conscience," he said.

The politician recalled that Machado is responsible for numerous casualties during the mass unrest, was involved in an attempt to ship a large batch of weapons disguised as humanitarian aid to Venezuela, calls for US intervention in the republic and supports the US illegal sanctions against Venezuela’s economy. Moreover, in his words, she supports Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

The Nobel Committee’s decision was made in Washington’s interests "to exert psychological pressure, justify the deployment of US armed forces, including destroyers, a nuclear submarine, landing ships, warplanes, in the Caribbean region and unleash aggression against Venezuela," Rodriguez stressed. "The United States is seeking to install a puppet government in Venezuela to halt its cooperation with Russia and China, to dismantle BRICS and stop the development of a multipolar world," he pointed out.

"But the United States is disregarding the fact that Venezuela’s armed forces and the Venezuelan people will defend their motherland’s territorial integrity, the right to independent development, and sovereignty with arms in their hands," he added.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado. The activist received the prize "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy," the Committee explained in a statement.