Nigeria’s Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (R) and South Korean Trade
Minister, Yoo Myung-hee (L). Both women are in the running to lead
the World Trade Organisation.Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP
The WTO is postponing a meeting next week where members
were to try to pick a new chief but with little chance of
succeeding after Washington blocked the favoured candidate,
Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, AFP learned Friday.
The World Trade Organization’s 164 member states had been due to
gather Monday to choose between two remaining candidates to head
the crisis-wracked organisation.
But the head of the selection committee set up to help with the
process told members Friday the meeting would need to be
postponed.
“It has come to my attention that for reasons including the
health situation and current events, delegations will not be in a
position to take a formal decision on 9 November,” General Council
chair David Walker said in a communication seen by AFP.
“I am therefore postponing this meeting until further notice
during which period I will continue to undertake consultations with
delegations,” he added.
The WTO selection committee, known as the troika, has
held months of consultations with members towards finding a
replacement for Roberto Azevedo, who in August stepped down as
director-general a year ahead of schedule.
After gradually whittling down the initial list of eight
candidates, the troika last week tapped Nigeria’s former finance
and foreign minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the one most likely to
obtain the needed consensus to take the helm.
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But hopes that the final stage would be a simple rubber-stamping
exercise were dashed when one country, the United States, announced
it was intent on backing South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee
instead.
The US announcement threw the WTO leadership hunt into
uncertainty.
In recent days many observers have stressed member states had
little chance of agreeing on a new director-general as long as
Donald Trump, perhaps WTO’s most fervent critic, remains in
the White House, and have urged a delay.
“They are right, this is a good thing,” a European diplomat in
Geneva told AFP following the announcement that the meeting would
be postponed.
In theory, the members could toss out the consensus principle
and turn to a vote, but such a procedure has never been attempted
in practice at the WTO.
In 1999, when members were unable to unanimously choose who
should be given four years at the helm, they opted to hand the two
top picks a three-year mandate each instead of resorting to a
vote.
AFP
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