Ethiopia's candidate to run the World Health Organization opened up a huge lead in the first round of voting on Tuesday, putting him on course to be the first African to head the United Nations agency.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former health minister and foreign minister, received more than half the votes in the first round, knocking out Pakistan's Sania Nishtar and setting up a second-round battle with Britain's David Nabarro.
The three were the last remaining from an original field of six candidates to lead the WHO.
The job has never before been earned through a competitive election and health officials from all over the globe thronged the assembly hall in the U.N.'s Geneva headquarters where voting took place behind closed doors.
The winner will succeed Margaret Chan, a former Hong Kong health director who steps down after 10 years on June 30, leaving a mixed legacy after WHO's slow response to West Africa's Ebola epidemic in 2013-2016 which killed 11,300 people.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former health minister and foreign minister, received more than half the votes in the first and second round .
Diplomats emerging from the hall said Ethiopia's candidate, universally known as Dr Tedros, received 95, votes, more than Nabarro's 52 and Nishtar's 38 combined.
In the final 3rd round Dr Tedros received 121 votes more than Nabarro's 45 combined.
He gets more than two-thirds in the second round, or a simple majority of the WHO's membership of 194 in a third round, beat Nabarro.
In a last pitch before voting began, Tedros had appealed to ministers by promising to represent their interests and to ensure more countries got top jobs at the Geneva-based WHO.
"I will listen to you. I was one of you. I was in your shoes and I can understand you better," Tedros told the ministers. "I know what it takes to strengthen the frontlines of healthcare and innovate around the constraints."
Tedros is widely seen as having the support of about 50 African votes. Nabarro, a WHO insider who has worked for 40 years in international public health, pitched himself as a "global candidate".
Nishtar, a cardiologist, civil society activist and former minister, had presented herself as able to deal with all stakeholders at a time when WHO was at a "crossroads".
(by Reuters)