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Secretary General of the Organization of American States

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The Secretary General shall direct the General Secretariat, be the legal representative thereof, and ... be responsible to the General Assembly for the proper fulfillment of the obligations and functions of the General Secretariat. (Article 109, OAS Charter.)

Secretaries General of the OAS

The Acephalous OAS of 2004

Following the October 2004 resignation of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Assistant Secretary General Luigi Einaudi stepped into the breach as a temporary measure. It has not yet been decided whether the Organization will hold a special General Assembly to elect a new secretary general, or whether Einaudi will continue to serve as Acting Secretary General until the regular General Assembly slated to take place in Fort Lauderdale, USA, in June 2005. In the meantime, however, the names of several possible candidates for the job have emerged:

  • Francisco "Paco" Flores of El Salvador. A "joint Central American" candidate to replace Rodríguez (consensus was that it was Central America's "turn" to head the OAS). Although Flores – a former president of his country – initially appeared a promising choice, as the negotiations progressed Ricardo Maduro of Honduras said his country would be unable to support him, and no alternative consensus candidate emerged.
  • Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico. A former president, his name was floated in a Los Angeles Times editorial, but it is highly improbable that he would garner the support of the current Mexican administration.
  • Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil. Another former president, his name was suggested in the same article as Zedillo's.
  • María Soledad Alvear Valenzuela of Chile. Current foreign minister.
  • Luis Ernesto Derbez of Mexico. President Fox officially threw his foreign minister's hat into the ring on 7 December 2004. Later that afternoon, the U.S. State Department repeated its insistence that a "Central American, an ex president" should be chosen; however, a spokesman for Canada's Pierre Pettigrew said Derbez would be an "excellent candidate". The following day Belize's ambassador to the OAS came out in favour of Derbez, saying he would make an "outstanding" secretary general.

Assistant Secretaries General of the OAS

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