"Olav Njoelstad, the non-voting secretary to the Nobel judging panel, said qualified nominators -- including lawmakers of national parliaments and former winners -- often submit their candidates at the very last minute, with new names pouring in throughout the deadline day, which was Monday this week. Any nomination postmarked before February 2 will be considered.
It was not clear who might have submitted the nomination for U.S. Republican presidential candidate and billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
Nobel watcher Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, told the French news agency AFP that he had received a copy of the nomination letter, suggesting Trump -- who drew criticism from around the world for his vow to ban Muslims entering the United States -- should be awarded the prestigious prize for "his vigorous peace through strength ideology, used as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS, nuclear Iran and Communist China".
