Six candidates have been nominated for election to the position of secretary general of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations’s shipping body.
The current secretary general, Japanese Koji Sekimizu, will step down at the end of 2015 and his replacement will be elected in June, at the IMO’s Council meeting.
The Council consists of delegates from 40 countries and its decision will be submitted to the IMO Assembly for its approval in late November 2015.
Denmark has nominated Andreas Nordseth, director general of the Danish Maritime Authority (DMA). He has worked at the DMA since 1991 and been its director general since 2009.
South Korea has nominated Ki-Tack Lim, the president of the Port of Busan Authority. He has previously worked as maritime attaché of South Korea to the IMO; director of its shipping policy division and director-general for maritime safety policy. He has also worked as the chairman of the IMO’s flag-state implementation (FSI) sub-committee.
The Phillipines has nominated Maximo Mejia, an international maritime academic, former naval and coast guard officer and current administrator of the Filipino Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA).
Mejia has been controversial in his current post at MARINA. In March 2014, the United Filipino Seafarers called for him to be replaced as a result of his alleged incompetence.
Cyprus has nominated Andreas Chrysostomou, acting director of the Department of Merchant Shipping. Chrysostomou has been working at the department since 1993 and became its acting director in April 2014.
At the IMO, he was chairman of the design and equipment subcommittee from 1999 to 2003 and chairman of the marine environment protection committee from then until 2013.
Kenya has nominated Juvenal Shiundu, a naval architect currently working as the deputy director of the IMO’s programme management section.
Shiundu worked at the Kenya Ports Authority, before managing the largest shipyard on the East African coast and then joining the IMO 17 years ago.
For the first time ever, Russia has announced a candidate, its deputy director of state policy for maritime and river transport Vitaly Klyuev.
