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General Assembly to hold new round of interview with UN chief candidate

Xinhua, July 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

The UN General Assembly said on Thursday it planned to hold a third round of interview with Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat who was former UN climate change chief, as a new candidate seeking to succeed Ban Ki-moon as UN chief.

The interview will be held on July 14 at UN Headquarters in New York, Dan Thomas, the spokesman for the president of the UN General Assembly, said at a press briefing.

Figueres will speak to reporters after her interview, as was the case for the 11 candidates who have already gone through the public opinion audit at the General Assembly, Thomas said.

She was nominated by Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis on Thursday for the position of the next UN chief.

Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, played an important role in helping 195 countries to reach the historic Paris Agreement, a global pledge by both developed and developing countries to curb the negative effects of climate change.

Born in August 1956, she served as the UN climate chief from 2010 until July 1 this year. She will be succeeded in that post by Patricia Espinosa, currently Mexico's ambassador to Germany.

On April 12, the General Assembly kicked off three days of unprecedented interviews with nine announced candidates for the next UN secretary-general.

These candidates include Montenegro Foreign Minister Igor Luksic; former Slovenian President Danilo Turk; former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who is also a former Portuguese prime minister; former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic.

Also in the race are United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; Moldova's former Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman; former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who heads the UN Development Programme; former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim; and former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic.

On June 7, the General Assembly held a second round of public audition with another two new candidates -- Slovakia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Miroslav Lajcak and Argentina's Minister of Foreign Affairs Susana Malcorra, who was Ban's chief of staff until late last year.

Under the UN Charter, the UN secretary-general shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

In practice, the 15-member Security Council and its five permanent members will make the final choice and send a single candidate to the General Assembly for approval.

Ban is going to conclude his term at the end of 2016. The council's decision to select the top leader of the world organization shall come late this year. Enditem