Andrew Sage

The Venezuelan opposition has never really been on the same page.

They've never really had an uncontested leader.

Maria Corina Machado is about the closest they have had.

But she herself really represents more one wing of the opposition, the more you might say hardline wing.

For a long time, there was a hardline wing personified by Lopez.

And there was a more, I don't know if you call it a soft line or liberal or just more willing to talk to the regime wing led by Capriles, who ran against Maduro in the first election.

And it's even within those factions, there are competing personalities.

A lot of it really is more personal than ideological.

But Maria Cornelia Machado, she is on the right politically.

She styles herself after Margaret Thatcher.

She is also, I will give her credit for this, a very good organizer.

She has famously kind of gone into communities that have historically voted with the Chavista left and convinced many people to leave.

that coalition.

And also, to her credit, I would say she is a very brave person.

She has remained in the country at a time that many, most opposition leaders, including Edmundo Gonzalez, have fled the country.

And she's been in hiding.

She knows that the regime would arrest, if not kill her at its soonest opportunity, yet she still shows up unannounced at events, at rallies, and makes speeches.

So she has achieved this

kind of mythic figure.

And this is something that obviously is only going to grow with the Nobel Prize.