Nobel Peace Prize: Trump, Navalny, Thunberg and WHO among candidates as nominations close

Climate activist, Russian opposition leader and global health body backed by Norwegian MPs, who have track record of nominating winner

Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the World Health Organisation and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg have joined Donald Trump among a list of expected nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a survey of Norwegian MPs who are eligible to propose candidates and who have a track record of successfully guessing the winner.

Ms Thunberg, Mr Navalny, and the WHO – for its Covax programme to secure fair access to Covid vaccines for poor countries – are likely frontrunners, research carried out by Reuters found. Nominations for the prestigious award close on Sunday.

The climate activist, Russian opposition leader and global health body are backed by Norwegian lawmakers, who have nominated the eventual laureate every year since 2014, with the exception of 2019.

Thousands of people, from members of parliaments worldwide to former winners, are eligible to propose candidates. A host of other figures including university professors and members of select international organisations can also put names forward.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides who wins the award, does not comment on nominations, keeping secret for 50 years the names of nominators and unsuccessful nominees, while nominations do not imply an endorsement from the committee.

But nominators can choose to reveal their picks.

In September, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a far-right Norwegian politician, put Mr Trump’s name forward for the 2021 prize.

He said the now former president had “done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees”, citing Mr Trump’s role in brokering a peace deal between Israel and Middle Eastern nations.

Greta Thunberg watches as President Trump enters the United Nations to speak with reporters in a still image from video taken in New York City, on 23 September 2019 (Reuters)

Other names put forward by the Norwegian MPs Reuters spoke to included Belarusian activists Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Maria Kolesnikova and Veronika Tsepkalo for their fight for a fair election; the human rights group Hungarian Helsinki Committee; and Iustitia, a group of Polish judges defending civil rights.

The Black Lives Matter movement has also been nominated for its “tremendous achievement in raising global awareness and consciousness about racial injustice”.

Additional nominees included the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists; former Charlie Hebdo journalist Zineb el Rhazoui; news website Hong Kong Free Press, the International Fact-Checking Network; and Paris-based Reporters without Borders (RSF).

Nato, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the International Space Station and the International Scout Movement have also been listed as potential recipients of the prize.

The 2021 laureate will be announced in October.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 101 times to 135 Nobel laureates between 1901 and 2020 – 107 individuals and 28 organisations.

In 2020, the World Food Programme won the prize “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”.

The year before, Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the honour “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea”.

Additional reporting by Reuters