Nobel peace laureate says Maduro’s political downfall is inevitable after her fraught journey to freedom by boat

• ‘Dangerous and scary’: how a US special forces vet helped María Corina Machado flee Venezuela

Nicolás Maduro’s political downfall is inevitable, the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado has claimed, rejecting claims that the dictator’s demise would plunge Venezuela into a Syria-style civil war.

Speaking to journalists in Oslo two days after being awarded the Nobel peace prize, Machado voiced confidence that her country was on the cusp of a new political era amid an intensifying US campaign to unseat Maduro.