The Cato Institute announces here that tomorrow, Thursday, April 20, it will announce the recipient of the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Here is a description of the prize:

Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty

The Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty carries a cash award of $500,000 and is presented every other year to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of human freedom. Previous winners of the prize include Hernando de Soto and Peter Bauer. Friedman, perhaps the greatest champion of liberty in the 20th century, graciously agreed to lend his name to the award and in a statement said:

Those of us who were fortunate enough to live and be raised in a reasonably free society tend to underestimate the importance of freedom. We tend to take it for granted. It has made us in the West more complacent, so having a prize emphasizing liberty is extremely important.

There are quite a large number of people around the world who have acted in ways that have promoted the cause of liberty, and have promoted the cause of liberty under circumstances which were personally very difficult, involving very serious costs to themselves. There are many more worthy candidates than there are prizes."

The 2006 award will be presented to the winner at a dinner on May 18, 2006, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

So who do YOU think WILL get the prize? Post your guesses here. (It won't be me as I assume the winner has already secretly been notified.) Even better if you post the reasons why the person deserves the prize AND why you think he or she will actually win. I suppose you can also guess who you think OUGHT to win and why they won't, but I wonder if anyone without inside information can actually name the eventual winner.