With no woman winning the award for seven years, there are also a number of strong female contenders for 2011.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who will announce the winner of the $1.5 million prize at 0900 GMT, gave little away in interviews with Norwegian broadcasters, though he took care to seem to steer questions away from a single-minded focus on Arab pro-democracy demonstrators.
“There are many other positive developments this year that we have observed in the international community,” former prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland said on Thursday. “I think it is a little bizarre that researchers and others have not seen them.”
“The theme we have chosen is a very important theme, and a very important driver in the world community today, which can be associated with many things, maybe … also the Arab Spring,” he told public television NRK early on Friday.
“We have been looking at a much bigger picture while researchers in a way have only picked out a few people and then that has continued to roll in the media. We hope to support something which is very important in the world community today.”
For some observers, including Norway’s often well-informed TV2, that could point to a woman winner.
Faced with a host of nominations each year to benefit from the bequest left by the Swedish inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, the five Norwegian committee members, appointed by the parliament in Oslo, generally tend to seek diversity from year to year in the characteristics of the peace prize winner.