COLOMBIA’S communist rebels are in the running for a new Venezuelan peace prize amid widespread criticism of their snubbing by the Nobel committee.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) were overlooked when Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos scooped the medal and the eight million krona (£750,000) cash prize on Friday.

That was despite the precedent set when the 1993 prize awarded jointly to South African liberation movement leader Nelson Mandela and the last apartheid-era president F W de Klerk.

On Friday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the establishment of the new peace prize, which will be named after his late predecessor.

“I’ve decided to create the Hugo Chavez prize for peace and sovereignty,” said Mr Maduro while unveiling a statue of the socialist leader, designed by Russian artist Sergei Kazantsev, which will serve as the model for the prize.

Mr Maduro explained the annual prize will go “to global and national personalities who have excelled in the struggle for peace.”

He said possible candidates for the first award included the Farc and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Maduro described as a “fighter for peace.”

“We have to award Colombia if they achieve peace,” he said, adding that the peace process had suffered a setback when the country’s electorate narrowly voted to reject the Havana peace accord in last Sunday’s referendum.

Also on Friday, Franco-Colombian former senator and Farc hostage Ingrid Betancourt said the guerillas “also deserved” the Nobel prize.

“Not only is it deserved, but it also invites a moment of reflection on Colombia, on hope for peace, on the happiness of saying, effectively, peace is not marching backwards,” she added.