Comedian, television star and now leader of a country at war… Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could add another string to his bow by becoming a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is in any case the wish of several MEPs like the former Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip or the former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstad.
The idea is not new. Indeed, a Norwegian deputy, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, was already considering, at the end of February, the candidacy of the Ukrainian president for the prestigious award. “He fights for peace and has been a huge inspiration to the Ukrainian people,” said the elected official.
In an open letter dated March 11, it is now a whole group of MEPs who support the candidacy of Volodymyr Zelensky. As they ask the Nobel Prize Committee to reconsider the procedure for nominating the prize – the deadline for submitting nominations having expired – the signatories wanted to pay tribute to the “courage of the Ukrainian people who are resisting this war that makes him suffer the Russian Federation”.
“We believe the time has come to show the Ukrainian people that the world is on their side,” they added. Extending the deadlines for presenting one or more names has never been done in the context of the Nobel Peace Prize, and for the time being, the Committee in charge of the prestigious prize has not spoken.
Moreover, the award given to “the person who has most or best contributed to bringing peoples together, to the abolition or reduction of standing armies, (…) and to the propagation of progress for peace”, already counts for the 2022 edition more than 250 contenders including environmental activist Greta Thunberg.