CWC: SELECTION OF THE NEXT OPCW DG: RESULTS OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L THE HAGUE 000601

SIPDIS

STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCA, L/NPV, IO/MPR,
SECDEF FOR OSD/GSA/CN,CP>
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC
COMMERCE FOR BIS (BROWN, DENYER AND CRISTOFARO)
NSC FOR LUTES
WINPAC FOR WALTER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2019
TAGS: PARM PREL CWC
SUBJECT: CWC: SELECTION OF THE NEXT OPCW DG: RESULTS OF
THE FIRST STRAW POLL

REF: A. STATE 103181

B. THE HAGUE 597

C. THE HAGUE 584

D. THE HAGUE 518

E. STATE 89303

F. THE HAGUE 451

Classified By: Janet E. Beik for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)

This is CWC-58-09


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The selection for the next
Director-General (DG) of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) moved
forward today after the first informal straw poll
of Executive Council (EC) members. Results of the
straw poll indicate a distinction between three
candidates in the lead, another candidate in the
middle and the other three candidates at the
bottom. EC Chairperson Ambassador Jorge Lomonaco
(Mexico) is waiting for candidates to start
withdrawing before announcing how he plans to
proceed before and during next week's EC session
(October 13-16). END SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) On September 29, Lomonaco convened a brief
meeting to update delegations on his "confessional"
consultations. Lomonaco announced that he had met
with all but one of the 41 EC members and that
there were clear, consistent trends across the
board with no regional variations on delegations'
preferences for candidates. After these
"confessionals" Lomonaco approached each candidate
or their selected representative to share
information he had gleaned relevant only to that
specific candidate; he stressed that he did not
advise anyone to withdraw but merely provided them
an indication of their support, or lack thereof.
As no candidates had chosen to withdraw by
September 29, Lomonaco announced his intention to
hold an informal straw poll on October 5 for all EC
members to indicate their rank-ordered preference
of each of the seven candidates.


3. (C) On October 5, Delrep Beik cast the ballot
for the U.S. per instructions (ref A). All 41 EC
members and a number of non-EC observers attended
the meeting. Before voting, Lomonaco gave a brief
explanation of how voting would work, and he
announced the five monitors (one nominated from
each regional group): Canada for the Western
European and Others Group (WEOG),Malaysia for the
Asian Group, South Africa for the African Group,
Croatia for the Eastern European Group and Costa
Rica for the Latin American and Caribbean Group
(GRULAC). While most EC delegations finished
voting within 20 minutes, Lomonaco held voting open
until the Nigerian Ambassador showed up -- 50
minutes after the meeting's start -- and cast her
ballot.


4. (C) The meeting then paused for just over an
hour to allow the five monitors to tally the
ballots and assign points to each candidate based
on their ranking. Each candidate received 7 points
for being ranked first, 6 points for second, 5
points for third, and so on to 1 point for last
place. The counted ballots and tally were
presented to Lomonaco in a sealed envelope to be
retained by the Technical Secretariat in case any
delegation asked to inspect ballots and for an
historical record. Costa Rican Ambassador
Francisco Aguilar announced that all members of the
Council had voted and there were no invalidated
ballots. Form ballots had signatures which were
Qballots. Form ballots had signatures which were
torn off so that all ballots remained anonymous.


5. (C) Aguilar then announced the number of points

given to each candidate in the straw poll, as
follows:

- Ahmet Uzunmcu (Turkey): 225
- John Freeman (UK): 203
- Peter Gottwald (Germany): 192
- Benchaa Dani (Algeria): 151
- Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat (Indonesia): 129
- Anton Thalmann (Switzerland): 129
- Aapo Polho (Finland): 119

Following the results announcement, Lomonaco
adjourned the meeting. He previously had said that
he wanted to allow delegations and candidates time
to "reflect" on the straw poll results before
proposing further course of action.


6. (C) Del comment. The vote was much closer than
many expected and reflected the clean split between
the top and bottom tiers of candidates. Uzumcu's
lead likely reflects broader regional support than
Freeman or Gottwald. Del fully expects another
round of straw polls before next week's EC session,
either on Friday (October 9) or next Monday
(October 12).


7. (U) BEIK SENDS.
LEVIN