Trump’s quest for Nobel Peace Prize falls short

Venezuela's Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado wins

- AGENCIES

US President Donald Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself.

Opposition activist Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela was awarded the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honouring her “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.”

Machado, however, said she wanted to dedicate the win to Trump, along with the people of her country, as she praised the president for support of her cause.

It was not immediately clear whether she would be able to attend the award ceremony in Oslo on December 10. Should she not attend, she would join the list of Peace Prize laureates prevented from doing so in the award’s 124-year-history, including Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975, Poland’s Lech Walesa in 1983 and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991.