MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Vaclav Havel, favourite candidate, Bush in the last place.

Former Check President Vaclav Havel has a lot of chances of getting the Nobel Peace Prize while the President of the United States, George W. Bush, ranks last in the list, said several forecast experts only three weeks away from the final verdict.

According to the Australian internet webpage, Centrebet specialized in this type of forecasts, Vaclav Havel, the hero of the "velvet revolution" of 1968 and head of the Check State until 2003, is the favourite candidate by five to one followed by the Managing Director of the International Agency of Atomic Energy, (IAAE), Mohamed ElBaradei, by six to one.

The name of the winner or winners of the Nobel Peace Prize will be disclosed in Oslo this October 8. This year there are 194 people and institutions competing for the prize (a total record).

Among the other favourite candidates there are several persons who had already been selected in previous editions, but could not get the award: American senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, who fight for nuclear disarmament and Swedish Hans Blix, former chief of inspectors of the United Nations in Irak.

The list of favourite candidates also includes Israeli Mordechai Vanunu, released in 2004 after 18 years in jail for having disclosed the existence of Israel's nuclear program; the Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá and the pope, Jhon Paul II.

French President Jacques Chirac is in the middle of the list, after candidates as diverse as the European Union, the President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf or India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

George W. Bush, "president of the war" and candidate in the American elections this November 2 ranked number 1,001 on the list, said the experts, together with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard and former President of Yugoslavia Slodoban Milosevic.

Last year the prize (a gold medal, a diploma and a check for 10 million Swedish crones, 1.3 million dollars) went to Irani human rights defender Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to receive the prestigious award.