Candidates for the post of Director-General announced

1 February 2011, Rome - Six candidates have been presented by FAO Member Nations for the post of FAO Director-General to be elected in June 2011, the agency announced today.

The election of a new Director-General will take place in a secret ballot to be held at the beginning of the 37^th FAO Conference (Rome, 25 June to 2 July 2011) by the organization's 191 member nations. The deadline for nominations was yesterday, 31 January.

The candidates

The six candidates, each nominated by his government, are listed in alphabetical order by country: Franz Fischler (Austria), José Graziano da Silva (Brazil), Indroyono Soesilo (Indonesia), Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini (Iran, Islamic Republic of), Abdul Latif Rashid (Iraq) and Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé (Spain).

Term of office: the new rules

The next Director-General of FAO will be appointed for the period 1 January 2012 to 31 July 2015. The Director-General will be eligible for only one additional mandate of four years.

The rules regarding the length of mandates and the issue of re-election were changed at the 36^th FAO Conference in November 2009 as part of FAO's renewal process.

FAO's new chief will be elected by a majority of votes cast. Each country will have one vote and the balloting is secret. 

The new Director-General will follow Jacques Diouf, from Senegal, who has been in office since 1994.  

Since the establishment of FAO in 1945, there have been seven Directors-General:

• Sir John Boyd Orr, United Kingdom, 1945-1948
• Norris E. Dodd, United States, 1948-1954
• Philip Vincent Cardon, United States, 1954-1956
• Binay Ranjan Sen, India, 1956-1967
• Addeke Hendrik Boerma, Netherlands, 1968-1975
• Edouard Saouma, Lebanon, 1976-1993
• Jacques Diouf, Senegal, 1994-current