The IAEA´s 146 Member States were advised this week that five candidates have been nominated for Director General of the Agency. In a letter dated 28 April 2008, IAEA Board Chair Taous Feroukhi said she had received official nominations from the governments of Belgium, Japan, Slovenia, South Africa and Spain.
The five nominated candidates are:
Mr. Yukiya Amano of Japan;
Mr. Luis Echávarri of Spain;
Mr. Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa;
Mr. Ernest Petrič of Slovenia; and
Mr. Jean-Pol Poncelet of Belgium.
The five candidates were nominated by their respective governments in line with a process approved by the Board in October 2008. IAEA Board Chairperson Ms. Feroukhi is soon to initiate informal consultations on the nominations received.
The nomination process was opened again on 30 March for a period of four weeks after neither of the two candidates that the Board had been voting upon in March received the necessary two-thirds majority of votes during successive rounds of secret balloting.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei´s term of office expires on 30 November 2009. He has stated that he is not available for a fourth term of office.
Background
Dr. ElBaradei is the IAEA´s fourth Director General since 1957. He was first appointed to the office effective December 1997, and reappointed in 2001 and 2005. He follows Hans Blix, IAEA Director General from 1981 to 1997; Sigvard Eklund, IAEA Director General from 1961 to 1981; and Sterling Cole, IAEA Director General from 1957 to 1961.