Politics

​MOLDOVA’S FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER NATALIA GHERMAN OFFICIALLY NOMINATED AS CANDIDATE FOR UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL

22 february, 2016

Moldova's former Deputy Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Natalia Gherman has been officially nominated as a candidate for United Nations Secretary General. A letter to this effect has been sent to the UN headquarters by Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip.

The letter, already published on the United Nations official website, reads that Natalia Gherman is “an exceptional diplomat” and that her qualities of a leader are well known at home and internationally. The letter highlighted among her impressing successes the negotiations on and conclusion of the EU-Moldova Association Agreement and creation of a zone of free trade with the European Union.

Natalia Gherman has become the 6th registered candidate for the high international post. Besides her, the post is being sought by UNESCO Secretary General and former Bulgarian foreign minister Irina Bokova, ex-President of Slovenia Danilo Turk, the foreign ministers of Montenegro and Croatia Igor Lukic and Vesna Pusic, and former minister of foreign affairs of Macedonia Sdrjan Kerim.

International mass media wrote earlier that an unofficial accord has been allegedly reached in the United Nations that the Organization’s next Secretary General will be a woman from an Eastern European country. However, Moldova’s former Permanent Representative at the Council of Europe and the United Nations, career diplomat Alexei Tulbure wrote in the social networks recently that the Gherman appointment question has not been agreed upon by Moldova with other countries, so Natalia Gherman has no chances absolutely to become a UN Secretary General.

The UN Secretary General election campaign began in December 2015, and the UN Security Council will begin considering candidates not later than in July 2016. Upon approval by the Security Council, the would-be Secretary General must receive the votes of minimum two-thirds of UN member countries. Successor to the incumbent UN Secretary General, former Prime Minister of South Korea Ban Ki-moon will assume office on January 1, 2017. Traditionally, the United Nations does not elect its Secretaries General from among the representatives of the UN Security Council member countries – Russia, Great Britain, the United States, China and France.

Natalia Gherman is the daughter of Moldova’s first President Mircea Snegur. She has held the posts of Moldova's Deputy Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration in 2013-2015; of Acting Prime Minister in June 2015; a deputy of the Moldovan Parliament; Ambassador to Austria, Sweden and to the OSCE and other international organizations. Gherman has been divorced, and has an adult son.

Add Comment

Add Comment

  • name
  • email
  • message
Thanks!
Your comment will be published after administrator approval.