The European parliament has awarded its top human rights honor, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, to Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González for “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.
Machado was set to run as the democratic opposition candidate against the incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela’s contested 2024 election, but she was disqualified by the government, so González took her place. He had never run for office before the presidential election.
