DHAKA: The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a coalition of civil society organisations, has won the 2015 Nobel peace prize.

Kaci Kullmann Five, the newly appointed chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said the quartet had formed an alternative peaceful political process in 2013 when the country was on the brink of civil war and subsequently guaranteed fundamental rights for the entire population, reports theguardian.com.

The peace prize is the only one of the six Nobels to be announced in Oslo.

The five-member committee had released no hints ahead of the announcement as to which of the 273 nominees - 205 people and 68 organisations - would win.

Favourites were the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for pledging to keep her country’s borders open to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Pope Francis, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif for the landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Others thought to be in strong contention were the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, Mussi Zerai, an Eritrean priest who helps coordinate rescue missions for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

BDST: 1508 HRS, OCT 09, 2015
RS