It’s not Trump! Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize
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Oslo: The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela’s influential opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, amid President Trump’s persistent claim for the prize, news agencies have reported.
Nobel Committee, consisting of five members, have chosen Corina Machado to honour her ‘tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy’.
This year Nobel Committee had to weed through 338 nominations including 244 individuals and 94 organisations as the world eagerly waited for the announcement today, especially in the light of US President Donald's repeated claims for the coveted prize on the basis of his contributions to stop wars, and he cited seven of them.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, made the official announcement at the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee includes human rights advocate Jørgen Watne Frydnes, foreign policy scholar Asle Toje, former Acting Prime Minister Anne Enger, former Minister of Education Kristin Clemet, and former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Gry Larsen.
With Trump’s frequent claims that he deserved the prize alongside his being nominated for the prize reportedly by several countries, including Israel, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Thailand, and Cambodia, the US president seemed to have emerged as a frontrunner.
Trump’s shadow hovered over the prize after he repeatedly made his case for the Peace Prize, especially in the aftermath of his hasty peace deal to end the war in Gaza.
‘I don’t know what they’re going to do, really, but I know this: that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months, and I’ve stopped eight wars,’ he reportedly said.
Experts say the committee typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals.
Last year's award went to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Japanese atomic bombing survivors who have worked for decades to maintain a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons.
The peace prize is the only one of the annual Nobel prizes to be awarded in Oslo, Norway.
Four of the other prizes have already been awarded in the Swedish capital, Stockholm this week — in medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The winner of the prize in economics will be announced on Monday.