The Nobel Institute announced on Wednesday that a total of 305 nominations had been made for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, without disclosing the identities on the list.
The 212 individuals and 93 organizations making up the nominations—which are down from the record-breaking 376 registered in 2016—were noted on the website of the institute headquartered in Oslo.
The contenders’ names are kept secret for 50 years in accordance with Nobel rules.
However, those who are qualified to submit a nomination—including former laureates, lawmakers, and cabinet ministers from any nation in the world, as well as some university professors—are free to divulge the identity of the individual or group they are putting forward.
Similar to last year, the majority of the names that have been openly revealed thus far are either participants in the nearly one-year-long conflict that has been raging in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s adversaries.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the head of Turkey, Jens Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, and a Ukrainian organization trying to create an international war crimes tribunal are among them.
Other known nominees include imprisoned Putin critics Alexei Navalny, a political activist and anti-corruption campaigner who was poisoned, journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, and the pro-democracy youth organization Vesna.
Climate activists Greta Thunberg of Sweden and Vanessa Nakate of Uganda, Iranian women’s activist Masih Alinejad and her anti-hijab organization My Stealthy Freedom, and the Salvation Army are also thought to be on the list this year.
It is thought that Chow Hang-tung, Peng Lifa, the Uyghur Tribunal, Kyaw Moe Tun, the former ambassador of Myanmar to the UN who is still serving in that capacity, the anti-junta coalition NUCC, and Maggie Gobran, a humanitarian who works with the poor in Cairo’s slums, have all been nominated.
Three organizations representing the three countries at the center of the conflict in Ukraine—Memorial, the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), and imprisoned Belarusian rights activist Ales Bialiatski—shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year. All three organizations have voiced their criticism of the conflict.
