Nobel Peace Prize: Could a Russian win this year?
Several Russian contenders are among the favorites for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, to be awarded Friday. But a Russian winner could make for sour relations between Norway and Russia.
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“I would have looked to Russia regardless of Jagland’s position,” he says. “But the fact that he is [secretary general], makes me think it is more likely. The only way to counter the criticism [over his roles] is to give the prize to a [Council of Europe] member state.”
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Other contenders
Another favorite to win the Peace Prize this year is Gene Sharp, a US scholar whose writings on nonviolence have inspired activists from China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 up until Egypt’s Tahir Square protest. Both Harpviken and Paddy Power rank him as their top choice. Sharp’s focus on nonviolence could be particularly relevant this year because of the Libyan uprisings turning into massive armed confrontation and Syrian confrontations converting into civil war.
Sharp spent five years in Norway, but the fact that he is an American works against him, given that there have been three Peace Prize winners from the US in the last decade, according to Sveen. However, the lack of a Latin American laureate in recent years could boost Mexican bishop and nonviolent human rights activist José Raúl Vera López or Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez.
Another possible direction is inter-religious dialogue. In this category, Harpviken points to Archbishop John Onaiyekan and the Sultan of Sokoto Mohamed Sa’ad Abubakar, leaders of the Christian and Muslim communities in Nigeria. Absent from his list is Maggie Gobran, Egyptian Coptic Christian and head of the charity organization Stephen’s Children. She has been nominated by Norwegian parliamentary members, but could be seen as an inflammatory choice because of the recent uprisings in the Middle East over the anti-Islamic video Innocence of Muslims produced by a Coptic Christian in the US.
In total, there are 231 valid nominations this year, 43 of which are organizations. Among this year’s nominees are reportedly several top leaders, such as Giulio Andreotti, Helmut Kohl, and Bill Clinton, organizations such as Nansen Dialogue Network, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Concerned for Working Children, Save the Children, and UNICEF, and various whistleblowers, including Israeli Mordechai Vanunu and Bradley Manning of the US.
The committee will announce their final choice on Friday morning in Oslo. The Peace Prize was shared last year by three women’s rights activists: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, head of Women Journalists Without Chains.
Ms. Gbowee has quit her post as head of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Ms. Sirleaf's government, criticizing her fellow laureate's administration for corruption and nepotism this week.
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