By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, February 7 -- The next President of the UN General Assembly will be from the Eastern European group, by the rotation system prevalent in the UN. There are two candidates: Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, and Lithuania's Permanent Representative Dalius Cekuolis. But now, Inner City Press is told, the battle has expanded.
Sources in the Eastern European group say that since 1967, there has never been a contested election and vote within the group, as was avoided by withdrawal in last year's clash in the Asia group in which rising power Qatar beat out Nepal amid charges that the election was "bought."
Here, there's grumbling that Lithuania has been "in line" for the position for some years. Now that Serbia's Jeremic has decided to challenge, sources tell Inner City Press, Lithuania has moved to "break silence" on Serbia coming to head the OSCE in 2014. Tit for tat, as they call it. Or leverage for a deal? Watch this site.
In other "Perm Rep on the move" news, Inner City Press is told the Peru's current Permanent Representative Enrique Roman-Morey gunning for the Disarmament post being vacated by Duarte of Brazil.
Outgoing Under Secretary General for Management Angela Kane has also been mentioned for the post, but others say she's bound for the UN Economic Commission on Europe.
A difficulty for Roman-Morey, sources tell Inner City Press, is that if as ICP has reported fellow GRULAC-er Susana Malcorra gets the Deputy Secretary General post from Asha-Rose Migiro, the "non-Japanese Asians" will, if Japan keeps DPI or gets OCHA, want another post: like Disarmament.
