Nobel Peace Prize committee responds to pressure for Trump to win award

Everyone thought it would be Trump

It comes after Venezuelan political activist María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for 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".

It added that the Nobel Peace prize for 2025 goes to a "woman who keeps the flame of democracy going, amidst a growing darkness".

The committee awarded Machado the prize for being one of the most "extraordinary examples" of courage in Latin America in recent times.

Machado has been a key unifying figure, it added.

"This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy, our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree.

"At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground."

Now, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, the Nobel Peace Committee's chairman, has responded to pressure about Donald Trump being awarded the prize.

He was asked whether this pressure impacted the decision of the committee while choosing the winner.

Frydnes said that "in the long history" of the Nobel Peace Prize the committee has seen campaigns and "media tension" and it receives thousands of letters each year from people who say "what for them leads to peace".

"We base our decision only on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel," he concludes.

First established in 1895 and first awarded in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five awards established by the will of Swede Alfred Nobel, which rewards people and groups for progressing humanity.

The categories are in Peace, Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. 

Cambodia nominated Trump "for his crucial role in restoring peace and stability at the border between Thailand and Cambodia".

Pakistan put his name forward for "his attempts to de-escalate the 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, seeking a resolution through dialogue and backchannel diplomacy, while emphasizing the principles of restraint, regional stability, and the prevention of armed escalation, despite India's stated refusal of third-party mediation and its insistence on bilateral engagement".

Meanwhile, Israel nominated the US president "in recognition of his pursuit of peace and security in the Middle East and Trump’s role in brokering the Abraham Accords and the ceasefire and hostage releases in Gaza".

Trump himself has even suggested his deserving nature of the award, claiming to have ended at least seven wars during his premiership.

At the end of August Trump said: "I've done six wars, I've ended six wars.

"If you look at the six deals I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires."

The following day, in an interview with Fox News, he revised the number to seven wars.

However, ultimately Trump's peace-prize dream was was not to be.