Election of the next FAO Director-General

26 June 2011, Rome - Today the FAO Conference will elect a new Director-General. The term of the new Director-General will start on 1 January 2012 and run through 31 July 2015.

The candidates

The six candidates nominated by their governments, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

• Franz Fischler (Austria)
• José Graziano da Silva (Brazil)
• Indroyono Soesilo (Indonesia)
• Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini (Iran, Islamic Republic of)
• Abdul Latif Rashid (Iraq)
• Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé (Spain)

Balloting process

FAO's next Director-General will be elected by a majority of votes cast by FAO Members. Each of FAO's 191 Member nations has one vote and the balloting is secret. The final results will be declared by the Chair of the Conference.

Rules governing the election of the FAO Director-General may be found here.

Previous Directors-General

The new Director-General will follow Jacques Diouf, from Senegal, whose term will end on 31 December 2011. 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-present