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A total of 231 nominees are up for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, the Nobel Institute said yesterday.
Bill Clinton, Helmut Kohl, the European Union and US soldier and WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning are on the list.
With 188 individuals and 43 organisations, the number of candidates comes close to last year’s record of 241, when the award went to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni “Arab Spring” activist Tawakkol Karman.
Thousands of people are eligible to submit nominations, including MPs and governments worldwide, university professors, past laureates and members of several international institutes.
The Nobel Institute keeps the names of nominees secret for 50 years, but those entitled to nominate can reveal who they have proposed.
Among the people nominated for this year’s prize are former US president Bill Clinton, German ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl, who led his country’s reunification process, and Ukraine’s ex-premier and now jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
Also on the list is jailed US soldier Manning, who has been charged with 22 counts in a US military court for turning over a massive cache of classified US documents to anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.
Despite its current crisis the EU is also among the candidates, as are Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege; Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Paya and Yoani Sanchez; Russian rights group Memorial and its founder, Svetlana Gannushkina; and US political scientist Gene Sharp, known for his theory of non-violent resistance which inspired some of the key figures behind the Arab Spring.
The winner will be announced in October. – Sapa-AFP