WHO Director Candidates Down To Three, Europe Drops In Ranking

The number of candidates to be the next director general of the World Health Organization was reduced from five to three tonight, with Ethiopia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom still in the running. But in a race as unpredictable as this one, delegates and observers in the hallway were both surprised and not surprised by the outcome as Europe fell to the bottom of the list.

The remaining three candidates, to be decided amongst at the May World Health Assembly, are:

1. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Ethiopia) [note: goes by “Dr. Tedros”]
   • http://www.who.int/dg/election/tedros/en/

1. Dr Sania Nishtar (Pakistan)
   • http://www.who.int/dg/election/nishtar/en/

1. Dr David Nabarro (United Kingdom)
   • http://www.who.int/dg/election/nabarro/en/

The final vote count, according to government sources, was:

Tedros  30
Nishtar  28
Nabarro  18
Prof. Philippe Douste-Blazy (France) 14
Dr Flavia Bustreo (Italy)  12

The outcome was hard to predict as voting is secret and governments were generally tight-lipped about who they were supporting, though they were lobbied by the various candidates at receptions and other locales during the week. The only WHO member states voting in this round were the 34 members of the Executive Board, and each voted for their top three choices.

The results held some surprises but given the unpredictability, people would be unsurprised by almost any outcome. Today’s vote showed a dramatic shift in support for Bustreo, who dropped from 33 yesterday to 12 votes today. This was not explained at press time. It is also interesting that yesterday the four European candidates garnered a total of 104 votes and today this dropped to a total of 44 with three candidates, the bottom three finishers.

Yesterday’s result was:

Tedros 34
Bustreo 33
Nishtar 32
Nbarro 30
Douste-Blazy 28
Dr. Miklós Szócska (Hungary)  13

The sixth candidate, Szócska, was eliminated yesterday (IPW, WHO, 24 January 2017).

Some government sources said on background that geographical region was not necessarily the top factor in determining countries’ choices.

The current breakout of the rotating Executive Board is (all WHO regions are represented):

WHO is broken out by regions. The region with the highest number of representatives is Europe, with eight countries: France, Kazakhstan, Malta, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Next is the African region with seven countries: Algeria, Burundi, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Gambia, and Liberia.

The Americas has six countries sitting on the EB: Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and the United States.

The Eastern Mediterranean region has five countries: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya and Pakistan.

The Western Pacific region also has five countries: China, Fiji, New Zealand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The South East Asia region has three representatives: Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand

The new director general will take over for Margaret Chan (China) on 1 July.

Catherine Saez contributed to this report.