IAEA Straw Poll on new Director General

By Ed Waage

Japan’s Yukiya Amano of Japan failed to receive a two-thirds majority in a straw poll taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors on June 9, 2009 to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as Director General. Amano received 20 votes, Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa received 11 votes and Luis Echávarri of Spain had 4 votes from the 35 member Board. Two other candidates received no votes.

The next formal vote is scheduled for July 2, 2009. If Amano can gain the four votes Echávarri received, he would have 24 votes which is the two-thirds margin needed. The IAEA General Conference of all 146 member nations would still have to approve the selection in September. ElBaradei’s term ends in November.

In an earlier round of voting in March, Amano received just one vote shy of the two-thirds needed while Minty received the rest. As we reported, Amano is favored by the industrialized countries while Minty draws support from developing countries. Since Japan is a close US ally, it is likely that Amano would follow a course much more liking to US interests.

There has been some concern that the earlier deadlock might be repeated, but Xihhua, the official Chinese news agency, reports that Amano "will probably win the formal election".

ElBaradei has often been criticized for failing to get tough on Iran as it continues to build an industrial scale capability to enrich uranium.

Meanwhile, ElBaradei released an updated report to the IAEA Board on Iran’s non-compliance with IAEA requirements and UN Security Council resolutions to allow additional inspection activities and to stop enriching uranium.

The report shows that Iran is still stonewalling and is available here. Besides uranium enrichment issues, the report also shows that Iran is still refusing to allow IAEA inspectors to review the design and construction of a heavy water reactor, IR-40, which would could be used to produce weapons grade plutonium.

Ed Waage worked at the IAEA in 2005.