Washington/ Oslo: The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday immediately devolved into political acrimony, as the White House vehemently denounced the Norwegian Nobel Committee for overlooking President Donald Trump.
The prize was conferred upon Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights” and her principled defiance against authoritarian rule, a decision that was lauded by democracy advocates globally.
However, a White House spokesman swiftly and acerbically declared that the Nobel Committee had demonstrably placed “politics over peace,” implicitly criticizing the exclusion of President Trump, who had been publicly and persistently vying for the honour based on his claims of brokering global peace initiatives.
Machado’s victory, which celebrates the indefatigable courage of civilian resistance, stands in sharp contrast to the aggressive political lobbying preceding the announcement, reinforcing the Committee’s historic preference for grassroots activism over high-level statecraft. The prize is a personal repudiation for the US President, who often asserted he deserved the recognition for ending conflicts.
