San Francisco Frontiers - Europe and US battle for top UN migration job

The IOM's 175 member states face a choice between backing former Portuguese government minister Antonio Vitorino for a second term, or supporting his US deputy Amy Pope to steer the organisation for the next five years.

The secret ballot is taking place at a Geneva conference centre, and observers said it could take several voting rounds, possibly spilling into Tuesday, before a winner is declared.

The IOM was founded in 1951 to handle the displacements in Europe following World War II but only became a UN agency seven years ago.

The race for the top job at the organisation comes at a critical time, as global numbers of migrants soar.

The Geneva-based body is the leading international body addressing the needs of some 281 million migrants throughout the world, according to a 2020 estimate.

The drawn-out campaign for the director general position has caused a rift between Washington -- which has invested heavily in ushering an American back into a traditionally US-held leadership role -- and its European allies, observers say.

- Shock challenge -

"It does seem to have caused a certain amount of diplomatic consternation," Megan Bradley, an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal and an expert on the IOM, told AFP.

Within the UN system, agency chiefs who wish to take on a second term are typically shooed in without challenge.

When Pope announced her candidacy in October, "it was a bit of a shock", a European diplomat in Geneva acknowledged to AFP on condition of anonymity.

"It was not seen as a friendly move."

Vitorino, a 66-year-old former Portuguese defence minister and deputy prime minister who became IOM chief in 2018, has meanwhile appeared defiant.

"All my predecessors for 70 years made two mandates, and I don't see any reason for a successful first mandate not to be followed by a second mandate," he told AFP in March.

Vitorino enjoys particularly strong support from European countries and has been praised for effectively leading the rapidly expanding organisation.

But Pope, 49, who if elected would be the first woman to run the agency, insisted to AFP earlier this year that there was "a lot of room for improvement", saying she had the vision needed to take IOM "into the 21st century".

- 'Tight race' -

With a long career in migration and disaster relief, including in the administration of former US president Barack Obama, Pope has high-level backing.

US President Joe Biden weighed in last week, saying he knew from experience working directly with Pope that "she is the right person for the job".

And on election day on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that Pope's "innovative people first approach will change the way countries handle migration, with solutions that work for everyone".

But Bradley said Washington's push might be less about the individuals involved than about the "long-standing tradition of having their candidate serve as the director general".

Vitorino is only the second non-American to lead the organisation, and the first in decades.

In 2018, he won by acclamation after member states rebuffed a candidate accused of climate change denial and anti-Muslim bigotry who had been proposed by then US president Donald Trump.

It remains unclear which way Monday's vote will go.

Both sides say they expect their candidate to obtain the two-thirds majority needed to win, although the European diplomat acknowledged "it will be a tight race".

D.Robinson--SFF