OPEC Governors, meeting in Vienna on 22-23 October, failed to come to a decision as to will succeed Libyan ‘Abd Allah al-Badri, as the organization’s next Secretary-General.
As expected, the decision has now been put off until OPEC’s next ministerial meeting, scheduled for Vienna on 12 December. Essentially, ministers will have before them four options. They can pick a successor to Mr Badri, whose second term expires at the end of 2012, from one of the four proposed candidates. They can elect to let Mr Badri continue, until an acceptable candidate is found. They can choose a compromise candidate from one of the other countries – Angola for instance has never had a Secretary-General. Or finally, as in the past, they could empower the incoming OPEC President (in this case Kuwait) to elect an Acting Secretary-General. (CONTINUED - 369 WORDS)
