Machado wins the Bruno Leoni award in Italy

The leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado won the Bruno Leoni Award in Italy this Friday for her incredible courage, extraordinary lucidity, and inexhaustible passion.over the years, in the service of the cause of freedom, according to the eponymous Institute that awarded him the prize.

Machado’s commitment in the most difficult conditions during “her constant fight for freedom and human rights” in Venezuela has motivated the award, which will be presented to her on November 11 in Milan (north), during the institution’s annual dinner.

Where is Maria Corina Machado?

The opposition leader is in Venezuela clandestinely after the departure from the country of Edmundo González Urritia, the opposition candidate in the last elections, who was subject to an arrest warrant from the authorities and who has been granted political asylum by the Spanish government.

The Bruno Leoni Institute highlighted his great intellectual rigor and extraordinary courage in putting his own person, his body, his freedom at risk in his fight against the legalized arbitrariness of the current Venezuelan regime, the Bruno Leoni Institute explained in a statement.

“The mobilization that you led, on the occasion of the elections of July 2024, is an example of non-violent protest that has been able to reveal to the world the nature of the regime,” the motivations conclude.

Alberto Mingardi, director of the Institute, He explained that they also want to give a small sign of deep solidarity towards Venezuelans, who have been victims for years of a brutal regime that has largely annulled all individual rights.

“Its cause seems peripheral compared to the major disputes that are the focus of geopolitical experts, and does not arouse the interest of commentators,” he added, “but the dramatic outcome of the experiment of ’21st century socialism’ contains lessons that we too must try to learn.”

According to the electoral records published by the opposition, González won with more than 80% of the votes, after Machado was disqualified from running in the elections, although the National Council declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner.

Who has won the Bruno Leoni Award?

The Bruno Leoni Institute, founded in 2003 to promote liberal thought in Italy, has been awarding prizes since 2008 to those who have contributed to the advancement of the ideas of individual freedom, the market and free competition. Previous winners include the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso (2021) and the writer Mario Vargas Llosa (2014).