Ten candidates line up to succeed Mayor
28 January 1999 (Updated 4 February 1999) [LONDON] Prospective candidates are already beginning to line up for the contest to succeed Federico Mayor as director general of Unesco next year.
The two current frontrunners are Ismail Serageldin, a vice president of the World Bank and chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and Ghazi Algosaibi, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to London, and a former minister in the departments of health and industry.
Serageldin, who officially launched his candidacy in Paris on Monday (25 January), has the support of member states of the Organization of African Unity. Algosaibi, meanwhile, has been endorsed by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as education ministers from the Arab League.
The two other declared candidates are Rosario Manalo, deputy minister for foreign affairs in the Philippines, who used to sit on Unesco's executive board, and Matsuura Koichiro, Japan's ambassador to France.
Adnan Badran, president of Philadelphia University in Jordan, and a former Unesco deputy director general, is understood to be considering standing, although his chances may have been weakened by the presence of Serageldin and Algosaibi. Candidates are also expected to emerge from Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Pal Ptaki, Hungary's permanent representative to Unesco, and the current chairman of its 58-country executive board, could emerge as the candidate from central and eastern Europe, a region which, like Asia and the Middle East, has never had a Unesco director general.
But one member of a Unesco national delegation believes that Ptaki is unlikely to stand, given that he has only recently become chairman of the executive board, a role in which he has yet to establish himself.
But if Ptaki were to stand, one former head of a UN agency believes that he could emerge as a stronger challenger to Serageldin than Algosaibi. One reason for this is that nationals from eastern and central Europe are poorly represented at the top of UN agencies.
Another reason is that despite strong personal credentials as an educationalist and published poet, Algosaibi will have difficulty in establishing the credibility of his candidacy among many Unesco member states, as well as women's groups.
Unesco stands for freedom of expression and the rights of women, points out one Unesco official, something for which Saudi Arabia, a country in which women are not allowed to drive on public roads, is not generally known.
Other likely contenders include Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, and Attiya Inayatullah, president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and a former president of Unesco's executive board. Both are from Pakistan.
However, their association with family planning issues is unlikely to endear them to some Muslim and Catholic states. In addition, Japan will expect Asian countries to vote for its candidate. And as Unesco's largest funder, it carries an influential voice.
Another important voice will be that of Britain, which recently renewed its membership after a long absence. Britain is head of the Commonwealth of its former colonies, and a leading member state of the European Union. Added together, the Commonwealth and the EU form a majority in Unesco's executive board.
But one factor, which makes forecasting near impossible is that the election will be held by secret ballot. A country delegate could in theory defy their country's choice of candidate without anyone finding out.
Unesco's executive board will interview candidates shortly after the September deadline for applications. The board will then agree on a single candidate to be presented for a vote by the general conference of member states, which will be held in Paris from 26 October to 17 November this year.
Serageldin, who is from Egypt, has been conducting what some observers have described as a "US presidential style campaign", and has already established a dedicated campaign website Serageldin for Unesco. He has also received endorsements from 150 prominent figures from politics, academia, industry, and non governmental organizations, including Bruce Alberts, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, Stephen J Gould, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and 18 Nobel laureates.
According to Sarwat Hussain, head of public affairs at the CGIAR, who is acting as Serageldin's unofficial campaign manager, Serageldin does not see any difficulty in his lack of support from Arab states.
Indeed, according to one former head of a UN agency, Arab states may well withdraw their support for Algosaibi at the last minute in return for a pledge by other Unesco member states to support a candidate of their choice for other senior UN posts.
But Serageldin, while arguably the most competent candidate in the field, may fall foul of the UN's geographical politics. Individual countries rarely head up more than one UN agency. Egypt is currently represented by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Another potential obstacle to Serageldin's bid could be his connection with the World Bank, where Serageldin has worked since 1972 after joining almost immediately after completing a PhD from Harvard University.
According to one Unesco official, some sections of Unesco see the bank as a rival, given its involvement in funding education in developing countries, and its attractions as a better paying employer for Unesco staff.
Serageldin has one other disadvantage; he is not a political heavyweight. Three of the most recent appointments to UN agencies have been filled by senior politicians. These include, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, who is now the UN commissioner for human rights and Gro Harlem Brundtland, a three-times prime minister of Norway, who was recently appointed as the new director general of the World Health Organization.
Observers believe that Serageldin's bid could be in trouble if a candidate of the political calibre of Robinson or Brundtland were to emerge.
Despite the difficulties, Serageldin remains buoyant about his chances. "My entire career has been a preparation for this job," he said last month in an interview in Washington. "The politics are not in my favour. But I see myself as the candidate representing the Unesco constituency."
"My [PhD] thesis was on the contribution of education to development," he added. "My supervisor said: 'go and work for the World Bank.' But I wanted to go to Unesco."
EHSAN MASOOD
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Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.