A few days ago, the Nobel Committee announced that the 2025 Peace Prize went to María Corina Machado. The Venezuelan opposition leader, who had to participate in presidential elections through proxy and still won them, and then they were stolen from her by the Maduro regime, became a symbol of the democratic struggle in one of the most brutal and persistent dictatorships in the hemisphere. Applause, emotion, international recognition. Everything that would be expected from an award of this nature, although its ideology is conservative, and its economic and political ideas are debatable.
Less, of course, for a good part of the Latin American left—and its echo in Europe—which became angry. They called Machado a puppet of imperialism, an apologist for genocide, “Guaidó in skirts.” Her crime: being an opponent of Maduro and the consecration liturgy of the dogmatic left. And that is why they anathematize her, even though she has bravely faced a dictatorship that persecutes, tortures and murders opponents, and that has forced almost eight million people to leave the country.
No one who calls themselves a democrat should have to explain why a regime like Venezuela’s is indefensible. But for a certain left, the criterion is not respect for human rights, but rather location on the ideological board. If anyone criticizes Maduro, then they must be with the CIA. If he defends clean elections, it is because he wants to restore neoliberalism. And if she is a woman, oppositionist, economically liberal and politically democratic, like María Corina, then she is little less than Satan in a tailored suit.
It doesn’t matter that he won an election with more than 67 percent of the vote. It doesn’t matter that they have blocked his candidacy with judicial tricks. It doesn’t matter that you risk your life every day in a country where dissent can cost your freedom or your life. What matters is that he is not part of the correct ideological club. And that, for the fanatic, makes it inadmissible.
Ioan Grillo—a journalist who sympathized with Chávez, met him, and then witnessed firsthand the humanitarian catastrophe that followed—sums up the dilemma well. Venezuela, he says, broke his heart. Because he believed in a democratic, popular and redistributive socialism, and what he found was a grotesque, corrupt and violent dictatorship, which also uses the anti-imperialist narrative as an alibi to stay in power. Grillo did not become conservative. He did not become anti-Chavista for sport. He saw people dying of hunger, hospitals without medicine, prisons without water. He saw the collapse, and he understood. Unlike the propagandists from the comfort of the First World, he was there.
But the story of María Corina and the delirium with which some sectors have reacted to her Nobel Prize does not end in Venezuela. The logic is the same that allows supporting Hamas with the Palestinian flag, without saying a single word about summary executions, suicide attacks, repression against women, institutional homophobia and the massacre of October 7, 2023. Again: if the enemy is Israel, then everything is allowed. This is how Manichaeism works. It is not about defending rights, but about choosing sides. Although in the chosen one there are bloodthirsty executioners.
Of course, criticizing Hamas is not the same as justifying Netanyahu’s war crimes, nor his colonialist policy, nor the murder of Palestinian civilians. That should go without saying. But for the left entrenched in the slogan, you have to choose a closed package: either you are with Palestine and then you remain silent about the atrocities of Hamas, or you are with Israel and then you are complicit in the genocide. There are no nuances. There are no doubts. There are no moral dilemmas. Just a catechism morality, with good and bad, heroes and villains. A left without self-criticism, without pluralism, without democracy of dogma and slogan, like the rancid Spain that another Machado, Antonio, referred to as closed and sacristy.
That same left is the one that remained silent when almost a thousand opponents were imprisoned in Venezuela. The one that swallowed the electoral fraud without a word. The one that still talks about “unilateral coercive measures” to justify hunger. The one that says that Maduro is not leftist, as if that exempts him. As if the problem is not what he has done, but on which side of the spectrum he did it.
And meanwhile, on the other side, there is a democratic left, which does exist, although it is difficult to find it in the noise of the networks. A left that defends civil liberties, that does not buy authoritarian speeches or endorse unpresentable governments. A left that does not believe that democracy is a means, but rather an end in itself. That can disagree with economic liberalism, without becoming complicit with repressors. Who knows how to distinguish between criticism and propaganda. Who does not see the world as a puppet theater where the only enemy is the United States.
That left is not the one that has dominated the public conversation. It has no state media, no bots, no operators. It does not produce slogans. But it’s still there. And it is the only one that can have a future. Because the others, those who are outraged by the Nobel Peace Prize while defending dictatorships and theocracies, are becoming caricatures of themselves. And they know it.
The case of María Corina Machado is not perfect. None are. He has made mistakes, he has been reckless in his alliances, and yes, he was wrong to dedicate the award to Trump in an English version of his message. But none of that erases the central fact: he won an election, it was stolen from him, and he continues to fight under extreme conditions for democracy in his country. And that, for anyone with a minimum of democratic coherence, should be enough to recognize it.
Of course, it’s not enough for fans. Because theirs is not justice, but ideological fidelity. And that is why they defend dictators while repeating “the people united will never be defeated.” They deny these people the right to choose, to protest, to live without fear. They even deny him the right to be defended by a woman who does not belong to the club. Because it’s not about the people. It’s about dogma.
And dogma does not tolerate deviations. He does not forgive dissent. He doesn’t understand pluralism. That is why he is outraged by a prize, but remains silent in the face of forced exile, torture, hunger. That is why he shouts against Israel, but remains silent against Hamas. That is why he claims to defend the poor, while justifying those who push them into the abyss. They only defend democracy if they are the ones who win. If not, they call it a farce, delegitimize it, sabotage it or despise it. Theirs is not a democratic project. It is a closed case that does not admit defeat.