More candidates join race to run the IAEA

In the last few days, three candidates—from Malaysia, Spain, and Slovenia—have been submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board, to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as the agency’s head.

ElBaradei has to retire from the IAEA later this year, and a few weeks ago a meeting to appoint his successor ended in failure over concern that the two original candidates—Japanese ambassador Yukiya Amano and South African diplomat Abdul Samad Minty--did not have broad enough support or experience to run the agency. The deadline for submitting the names of new candidates is 27 April.

The first new candidate arose last week when Malaysia submitted Noramly Muslim, chairman of the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board and a lecturer on atomic technology at the National University of Malaysia. In the mid to late 1980s Muslim served as the IAEA deputy director general for technical cooperation.

In recent years he has been pushing the Malaysian government to develop at least two nuclear power plants to reduce its dependence on oil.

On Wednesday, Spain’s representative submitted Luis Echavarri, the director general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency .

Echavarri, who was born in Spain in 1949 and has a series of master’s degrees in engineering and business administration, has been with the OECD for the last 12 years . He has been connected to the nuclear industry since 1975, originally working on the Lemoniz, Sayago, and Almaraz nuclear power plants for Westinghouse Electric before moving to a more regulatory role with the Spanish government in 1985.

Slovenia’s government on Thursday submitted former diplomat and international legal expert Ernest Petrič. “The government is convinced that the candidate is able to manage the agency professionally and effectively given his personal qualities, diplomatic and managerial experience, and excellent knowledge of the IAEA, as well as of problems and challenges faced by the organization,” the Slovenian press agency STA quoted a government press statement as saying.

Petrič, 72, was Slovenia’s ambassador to the US, Mexico, Brazil, and the United Nations. Among international organizations, he has represented Slovenia to the IAEA, the UN security council, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was chair of the IAEA’s governing board for 2006–07. Currently he is a judge on Slovenia’s Constitutional Court.

The candidates join Japanese ambassador Yukiya Amano, a nonproliferation legal expert and also a former chair of the IAEA’s governing board , who resubmitted his application for the position after not receiving enough votes by the member states to win the first time around.

Amano joined the Japanese Foreign Ministry in 1972, rising to the positions of director of the science division, and director of the nuclear energy division. He was appointed director general for arms control and scientific affairs in August 2002 and director general of the Disarmament, Nonproliferation and Science Department in August 2004. He has been one of Japan’s main negotiators on a number of arms control treaties, discussing such issues as the comprehensive test ban treaty, extending the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and the verification protocols regarding the biological and chemical weapons

The governing board will vote on the candidates sometime in May.

Paul Guinnessy

IAEA