Fragment from Frydnes’ speech:

Year after year, students, trade unions, journalists, business groups and ordinary citizens have mobilised in waves of resistance.

They have filled the streets in protest. When their votes were taken away, they banged pots and pans. When state surveillance is inescapable, they whisper.

People across the political spectrum – from communists to conservatives – have risen to challenge the regime. The opposition has tried one strategy after another.

Through it all, they have said: We strive not for revenge, but for justice. For the sanctity of the ballot box. For democracy. For peace.

But they are told, in reply, that those things are impossible. That they will fail.

And when the Venezuelans asked the world to pay attention – we turned away.

Fragment from MCM’s speech as delivered by Ana Corina Sosa:

We built a democracy that became the most stable in Latin America, and freedom unfolded as a creative force. 

But even the strongest democracy weakens when its citizens forget that freedom is not something we wait for, but something we become. 

It is a deliberate, personal choice, and the sum of those choices forms the civic ethos that must be renewed every day. 

The concentration of oil revenues in the State created perverse incentives: it gave the government immense power over society which turned into privilege, patronage, and corruption. 

My generation was born in a vibrant democracy, and we took it for granted. We assumed freedom was as permanent as the air we breathed. We cherished our rights, but we forgot our duties.

I was raised by a father whose life’s work — building, creating, serving — taught me that loving this country meant assuming responsibility for its future.

By the time we recognized how fragile our institutions had become, a man who had once led a military coup to overthrow the democracy, was elected president. Many thought charisma could substitute the rule of law.