María Corina Machado wins the 2024 Bruno Leoni Prize for her courage in the fight for freedom in Venezuela
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was honoured for her courageous commitment to the defence of individual rights and democracy
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María Corina Machado is the winner of the Bruno Leoni Award 2024. The leader of the Venezuelan opposition was chosen by the Bruno Leoni Institute for 'the incredible courage, the extraordinary lucidity, the inexhaustible passion she has put into serving the cause of freedom over the years'.
The following is the motivation for the award:
"María Corina Machado has been committed for years to advancing the cause of freedom under the most difficult conditions. She has done so with great intellectual rigour, asserting the reasons of rule of law against the legalised arbitrariness of the current Venezuelan regime. And she did it with extraordinary courage, putting herself, her person, her body, her freedom on the line to give new vigour to the cause of individual rights, transparency and democracy. The mobilisation she led, on the occasion of the July 2024 elections, is an example of non-violent protest that was able to reveal the nature of the regime to the world. She received the 2024 Bruno Leoni Prize for her incredible courage, extraordinary lucidity and inexhaustible passion put at the service of the cause of freedom'.
The award ceremony took place in Milan at the Talent Garden Calabiana (Via Arcivescovo Calabiana, 6), during the annual dinner of the Bruno Leoni Institute, on 11 November 2024 at 7.30 p.m. María Corina Machado was not present at the award ceremony, but addressed the audience via video link-up. The former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma (video), accepted the award in her place.
"With this award," explains Alberto Mingardi (from Radio 24), director of the Bruno Leoni Institute, "we also want to give a small signal of deep solidarity with the Venezuelans, who have been the victims of a brutal regime for years that has largely annulled all individual rights. Their cause appears peripheral, compared to the major disputes at the centre of interest of geopolitical experts, and does not arouse the interest of commentators. The dramatic outcome of the experiment of '21st century socialism' contains lessons that we must also try to learn'.
