BRUSSELS (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia have won the European Union’s top human rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced Thursday.
Metsola lauded the two for their fight for democracy. Machado ran as the democratic opposition candidate in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, but she was disqualified by the government, so González took her place. He had never run for office before the presidential election.
Machado’s group maintains that it has evidence that González won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin against Venezuela’s authoritarian incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, despite his claim to have won.
The EU award, named after Soviet dissident Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and basic freedoms.
The Associated Press