The Nobel Institute has said that Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is amongst the record breaking 278 people and organisations nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. His addition to the list is the latest in a series of dubious choices by the Norwegian Team that runs the award.
Once a respected international benchmark, the prize has been widely derided in recent years after Al Gore shared the award with the United Nations Climate Change Panel in 2007. Then in 2009 Barrack Obama won it despite having only been US President for one month before the nominations closing date.
The award was then given to the European Union, despite their failure to prevent wars in European Countries such as Kosovo and Bosnia.
Whilst any national parliamentarian is entitled to submit nominations, the Nobel Institute’s five man committee does have the right to add to this list. The list itself is not normally published for 50 years and it is unclear why they choose to release the names of some nominees but not others.
A spokesman for the Institute, Geir Lundestad said: “The number of nominations increases almost every year, which shows a growing interest in the prize. We receive nominations from absolutely everywhere in the world.”
Amongst the other nominees this year was US turncoat, Edward Snowden.
Last year there were 259 nominations, which was also a record. The 2013 prize went to Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was involved in unsuccessful attempts to dismantle the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal.
The result will be announced on 10th October, after a secret list of academics and experts get to vote by post. Winners cannot refuse the award and the prize is $1.5m.
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