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OAS Permanent Council Defined Details of the Presentations by Candidates for Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General to Member States and Civil Society

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) today agreed on the details of the presentations in which the candidates for Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General of the Organization will set forth their proposals to the Council and to civil society, and ratified that both positions will be elected on March 18 in a Special General Assembly to be held at the headquarters of the institution in Washington DC.

The Permanent Council resolved that the candidates for Secretary General will present their proposals on Wednesday, February 18. The presentations will be made during the day, and the order will be defined by lottery. At present, the candidates for Secretary General are the former Vice President of Guatemala Eduardo Stein, and the Foreign Minister of Uruguay, Luis Almagro. One day later, both candidates will present their proposals – separately – to the representatives of the civil society organizations accredited before the OAS. Currently, 450 civil society institutions are included in the registry of the Organization.

It was also agreed that the candidates for Assistant Secretary General will set out their visions for the OAS to the Permanent Council on Wednesday, March 4, in the same format as the candidates for Secretary General. Next, on Thursday, March 5, the candidates will meet with civil society organizations. Presently, the candidates for Assistant Secretary General are the Permanent Representative of Belize to the OAS, Nestor Méndez, and the Permanent Representative of Guyana to the OAS, Bayney Karran.

According to the rules of the OAS, candidates can be presented for both positions until the day of the election.

On another issue, the Council received the “Plan and chronology to implement the recommendations that fall to the General Secretariat contained in the Strategic Plan for Management Modernization at the OAS,” which was sent by the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, and resolved to send it to the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs for its corresponding analysis.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Ambassador of Suriname, Niermala Badrising, who assumed the Chair of the Permanent Council on January 1 for the next three months, expressed her commitment and that of her country to undertake the tasks that she will face during her time at the head of the body, a time in which the new authorities of the Organization will be elected, and in which the preparations for the Seventh Summit of the Americas will be finalized, which will be held in April in Panama. For her part, the Permanent Representative of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, La Celia Prince, who concluded her period as Chair on the last day of December, said it had been a “special privilege” to have directed the Permanent Council during the last term of 2014; highlighted that her work focused on reaching consensus between the member countries, on issues related, for example to agreements on the elections of the next Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General. Several delegations thanked Ambassador Prince for her leadership as Chair.

During the meeting, the delegations of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Dominica, Barbados, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Chile took the floor, as did the Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin, and the heads of the Secretariats of Legal Affairs and External Relations of the OAS.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

The full video of the event will be available here.

The audio of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-011/15