Earlier this month, five democratic activists from Venezuela—hostages of the Maduro regime—were rescued and brought to safety on US soil. These courageous individuals, all allies of opposition leader María Corina Machado, had been imprisoned for daring to stand up for freedom in Venezuela.
Just weeks ago, we honored María Corina Machado for her fearless stand against dictatorship with RDI’s Hero of Democracy award. She couldn’t attend because the threats to her life are so severe that she remains in hiding to this day. Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the award on her behalf.
What Ana Corina shared that evening—about the courage of Venezuela’s democratic movement, about the personal sacrifices political dissidents make—was deeply moving. This isn’t just any speech about freedom—it’s also a child speaking about their beloved parent. Watch her remarks, and you’ll see that democracy runs in the family.
— Garry Kasparov
Good evening esteemed guests, honorees, and members of the Renew Democracy Initiative. Tonight, we gather to honor the courage of those who refuse to surrender to tyranny and remain unwavering in their defense of democracy.
I stand before you on behalf of my mother, María Corina Machado, who has dedicated her life to this fight. And for this, she has been barred from leaving Venezuela for more than 11 years, and today has been tracked down by the government. This is why she's not here tonight with us.
But the triumph of the Venezuelans in the July 28 presidential election was an act of remarkable courage, resilience, and love for freedom. Despite immense risks, millions of Venezuelans went out to the polls and delivered a decisive victory against the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, with 70 percent of the vote against his oppressive rule.
But this victory was not just about the results, it was about the historic civic organization and movement behind it. Hundreds and thousands of small communities, civilians, and poll workers spread out across the country and risked everything to defend the vote and protect the electoral process. And the result was that more than 85 percent of official electoral ballot sheets were retrieved, safeguarded, and scanned for the world to see. Just hours after the polls closed, every single one of you in this room could go online and be witness to the indisputable verdict delivered by Venezuelans that Edmundo González Urrutia is our rightful president-elect.
Here in my hands is one of those official ballot sheets. We did not just beat the dictatorship. For the first time in our history, we proved it. That day, over 7 million Venezuelans defied fear and proved that even in the darkest times, courage and resilience will prevail.
But what followed was not a peaceful transition of power, but a brutal and unrestrained campaign of terror and repression by the regime. Every single Venezuelan who actively defended one of these tally sheets is today either in political asylum, in hiding, imprisoned, or dead.
Today, more than 900 political prisoners remain in Venezuela, unlawfully detained in one of the regime's torture centers. That is about 1000 families turned apart, human rights violated, futures torn.
The fight for democracy in Venezuela is not abstract. It is deeply personal.
Our president elect, our rightful precedent, has been forced into exile. And my mother, María Corina Machado, has been in hiding for more than eight months in Venezuela in complete isolation and with constant threats to her life. Yet she, like many other Venezuelans, refuses to give up. We won't give up because we stand for something far greater than ourselves.
We stand for the future of liberal democracy and the sovereignty of nations. Our fight is for human dignity, the reunification of families, and the future of our generation.
When you fight for the soul of a nation, resisting is not an option. It is a moral obligation. And in Venezuela, we will see it through until the end—until we are free.
Ana Corina Sosa is a Venezuelan democracy advocate and daughter of opposition leader María Corina Machado. Based in New York, she campaigns for the recognition of the opposition’s 2024 electoral victory. She holds degrees from Harvard Business School and the University of Michigan and is a HRF Freedom Fellow.
María Corina Machado is a Venezuelan political leader, human rights advocate, and one of the most prominent voices in the fight for democracy in Venezuela. A former National Assembly legislator, she has spent decades challenging authoritarian rule and defending the political rights of Venezuelans. In 2023, she won the Venezuelan opposition’s primary election by a landslide, but was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election. Despite relentless persecution, she continues to champion freedom and human rights.
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