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Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — Colombia Senator Piedad Cordoba and Afghanistan’s Sima Samar, two women promoting peace and human rights in conflict zones, are among the top contenders for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo said.
There are a record 205 nominees for the 10 million-krona ($1.4 million) prize, which women rarely win, set to be announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Oct. 9. U.S. scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak were awarded the Nobel medicine prize today, the first of six prizes to be announced through Oct. 12.
Cordoba, 54, “is the most likely candidate,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the institute which each year lists potential winners. “She has been able to carve out an independent space for herself in a conflict that’s very protracted. Samar certainly has a very strong personality and played a major role in the Afghan context.”
The prize, along with other honors for literature, physics, medicine and chemistry, was created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will and first awarded in 1901. Finland’s Martti Ahtisaari won last year and past laureates include Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa. Kenya’s Wangari Maathai was the most recent female winner in 2004.
Samar, 52, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, is the institute’s third pick after interfaith advocate and Jordanian royal family member Ghazi bin Muhammad, a professor of Philosophy of Islamic Faith at Jordan University. Samar and Cordoba are favored at bookmaker Paddy Power Plc at 4/1 and 6/1, respectively. Bin Muhammad is at 7/1.
FARC Guerilla
Cordoba, a senator for the opposition Liberal Party, leads Colombians for Peace, an initiative for a negotiated solution to the conflict between the government and the FARC guerilla, which was founded in 1964 as a peasant-based, Marxist group.
The institute correctly guessed former Vice President Al Gore as a winner in 2007, and earlier in the decade had the International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei, who won in 2005, and Ahtisaari, as potential candidates.
In the prize’s history, 12 winners have been women and 84 men. Organizations have also been honored, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1917, 1944 and 1963. Some years no prize was awarded.
While nominations are kept secret, some are revealed by the nominators, which include former laureates and selected academics and politicians. Of the 205 nominees this year, 33 are organizations and the rest individuals, according to Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
Cordoba, who has negotiated the release of hostages, was nominated by Adolfo Perez Esquivel, a 1980 laureate and Argentine human rights activist, according to Oslo’s peace institute.
Chinese Winner
One of last year’s favorites, Chinese environment and AIDS activist Hu Jia is unlikely to win because two of the Nobel committee’s members this year were also members of the Norwegian parliament, according to Berg Harpviken. Awarding Hu may increase tensions with the world’s most populous nation, which on Oct. 1 celebrated the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China following the civil-war victory of Mao Zedong.
Candidates
Other possible candidates include Lidia Yusupova, a Russian lawyer and campaigner for Chechen war victims; the Cluster Munition Coalition, an alliance of groups against such weapons; Bulambo Lembelembe Josue, a Congolese pastor who won the Norwegian Rafto award last year, given for promoting intellectual, political and economic freedom; and the European Union.
Prizes for literature, chemistry, medicine and physics, are picked by the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation. The prize for physics will be announced on Oct. 6, the chemistry honor on Oct. 7 and the literature prize on Oct. 8. The Nobel for economics, instituted by the Swedish central bank in 1968, will be announced on Oct. 12.
