Germany is seeking support from other EU members to ensure a second term for WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, but African states have yet to show their cards, government sources and diplomats said on Wednesday.
The deadline for proposing candidates in the politically charged race was yesterday at 4pm GMT, and no other candidate for the election in May next year is known to have surfaced, they said.
Tedros, who was elected as the WHO’s first African director-general in May 2017, has this time been shunned by his native Ethiopia due to friction over a conflict in the country’s Tigray region.
Photo: AFP
German Minister of Health Jens Spahn on Tuesday backed a second term for Tedros and called on other countries to support the former Ethiopian health and foreign minister ahead of the deadline.
Government sources in Berlin on Wednesday told Reuters that it was now an official nomination.
“Right now an effort is going on, led by Germany, looking for other member states to join Germany in nominating him,” a Western diplomat said. “Germany won’t be alone.”
Tedros, who has been the public face of the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, has trodden a fine line while managing to anger both China and the US at different times.
The administration of former US president Donald Trump accused him of being “China-centric,” a charge he denies.
However, relations have improved since US President Joe Biden took office, and Tedros in July said that a second phase of studies into the origins of COVID-19 in China were needed, including audits of laboratories.
One African diplomat at the African Union said that the appointment of a new head of the WHO had not been discussed among member countries.
An African ambassador in Addis Ababa said that he was not aware of any member of the bloc preparing an alternative candidate.
Most regional countries are keen to see him stay in the job, where he has promoted their access to COVID-19 vaccines and the start of vaccine production on the continent, he said.
A senior African diplomat based in Geneva, Switzerland, said that he did not expect any bloc member to nominate Tedros, as he did not enjoy Ethiopia’s backing.
However, African countries are expected to support Tedros’ re-election, and the senior diplomat was not aware of any other candidates from Africa or another region.
“As a regional group it is always difficult when the home country doesn’t support its own national. It would be complicated for an African country other than his country of origin to take the initiative,” he said.
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