Ronald Sanders

The cam­paign for the po­si­tion of sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) has been taint­ed by mis­in­for­ma­tion and po­lit­i­cal dis­tor­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on so­cial me­dia.

A mis­lead­ing nar­ra­tive has emerged, false­ly fram­ing the elec­tion as a geopo­lit­i­cal bat­tle be­tween the Unit­ed States and Chi­na for con­trol of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

This por­tray­al is en­tire­ly de­tached from re­al­i­ty and dis­tracts from the fun­da­men­tal is­sue at hand: the se­lec­tion of the most ca­pa­ble can­di­date to lead the OAS Sec­re­tari­at.

The two of­fi­cial can­di­dates are Rubén Ramírez, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Paraguay, and Al­bert Ramdin, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Suri­name. Ramírez has open­ly as­so­ci­at­ed him­self with the Unit­ed States, im­ply­ing its sup­port for his can­di­da­cy, al­though the US gov­ern­ment has en­dorsed no can­di­date and made no state­ment con­cern­ing its pref­er­ence.

So­cial me­dia cam­paigns have re­in­forced the per­cep­tion, of an ide­o­log­i­cal bat­tle, high­light­ing Paraguay’s lack of diplo­mat­ic ties with Chi­na. Con­verse­ly, the same sources claim that Ramdin, who has the uni­fied sup­port of all 14 Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) mem­ber states in the OAS, is aligned with Chi­na and would serve as its proxy with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. This as­ser­tion is ab­surd and ig­nores the fun­da­men­tal struc­ture and sys­tem by which the OAS is gov­erned.

Adding fur­ther com­plex­i­ty to the race, Ar­nal­do An­dré, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Cos­ta Ri­ca, has en­tered the con­test as an un­of­fi­cial can­di­date. An­dré has re­cent­ly pub­lished a man­i­festo in Span­ish, out­lin­ing his vi­sion for the Or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The gov­ern­ment of Cos­ta Ri­ca has the right to pro­pose An­dré’s can­di­da­cy up to the day of the elec­tion on March 10, but he is un­like­ly to gar­ner much sup­port. He of­fered him­self as a can­di­date with­out cam­paign­ing among the mem­ber states or sub­ject­ing him­self to ques­tion­ing from the OAS mem­bers and civ­il so­ci­ety – a process in which both Ramírez and Ramdin en­gaged. His chances were al­so com­pro­mised by an out­ra­geous slur from his Pres­i­dent, who false­ly claimed that Venezuela’s Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro had ‘bought the votes’ of Cari­com coun­tries at the OAS.

In any event, the OAS is a mul­ti­lat­er­al in­sti­tu­tion in which the Unit­ed States, as a full mem­ber state, ex­er­cis­es di­rect in­flu­ence in de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es. Chi­na, by con­trast, is an ob­serv­er state, at­tend­ing on­ly open pub­lic meet­ings and hav­ing no vote or de­ci­sion-mak­ing pow­er.

The sug­ges­tion that the OAS could be “tak­en over” by Chi­na through the elec­tion of a sec­re­tary gen­er­al is not on­ly false but al­so demon­strates a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s struc­ture and sys­tem of gov­er­nance.

There ap­pears to be a mis­con­cep­tion that the OAS’ sec­re­tary gen­er­al has in­de­pen­dent pol­i­cy­mak­ing au­thor­i­ty. In re­al­i­ty, the sec­re­tary gen­er­al is an ad­min­is­tra­tor, ex­e­cut­ing the man­dates set by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and the Per­ma­nent Coun­cil. The role is one of im­ple­men­ta­tion, not uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing. No sec­re­tary gen­er­al can law­ful­ly act or speak on be­half of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion with­out the ex­press man­date of mem­ber states.

The up­com­ing elec­tion on March 10 is not about geopo­lit­i­cal ri­val­ries; it is about se­lect­ing a Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al who can ef­fec­tive­ly ex­e­cute the will of the mem­ber­ship, strength­en the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and en­hance its pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­pe­ri­ence alone will not be enough. The next sec­re­tary gen­er­al must nav­i­gate one of the most se­vere fi­nan­cial crises in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s his­to­ry. This de­ci­sion comes at a pre­car­i­ous mo­ment for the OAS, which has suf­fered from chron­ic un­der­fund­ing.

For years, the Or­gan­i­sa­tion has re­lied on “spe­cif­ic” funds from non-mem­ber states such as Spain and mem­bers of the Eu­ro­pean Union, along­side con­tri­bu­tions from the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, and Mex­i­co. With­out these funds, cru­cial pro­grammes in se­cu­ri­ty, strength­en­ing democ­ra­cy, hu­man rights pro­tec­tion, coun­tert­er­ror­ism, an­ti-nar­cotics ef­forts, and transna­tion­al crime pre­ven­tion would have col­lapsed long ago.

The fi­nan­cial cri­sis has been ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the re­cent de­ci­sion of the US gov­ern­ment to sus­pend “spe­cif­ic” fund­ing as part of a broad­er re­view of its sup­port for in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions. This re­view, ex­pect­ed to con­clude by April 30, leaves un­cer­tain­ty over the cur­rent work of the OAS – 215 mem­bers of the work­force and 67 pro­grammes are di­rect­ly af­fect­ed, with many projects halt­ed.

Com­pound­ing this is­sue, three months ago, when the cur­rent bud­get of the OAS was adopt­ed, many mem­ber states had re­fused to in­crease their as­sessed con­tri­bu­tions, opt­ing in­stead for fur­ther bud­get cuts and as­set sales, fur­ther weak­en­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s abil­i­ty to func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly.

Giv­en this dire re­al­i­ty, the next Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al must pos­sess more than diplo­mat­ic cre­den­tials; he (there is no fe­male can­di­date) must have a firm grasp of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s op­er­a­tional needs, fi­nan­cial con­straints, and in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges. He must al­so be pre­pared to lead with re­silience, in­no­va­tion, and a clear vi­sion for re­vi­tal­is­ing the OAS at a time of di­min­ish­ing re­sources.

Cari­com has care­ful­ly as­sessed the can­di­dates and con­clud­ed that Al­bert Ramdin is the best-suit­ed choice. His decade of ex­pe­ri­ence as as­sis­tant sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the OAS unique­ly po­si­tions him above all oth­er con­tenders.

He pos­sess­es an in­ti­mate un­der­stand­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s in­ner work­ings, its chal­lenges, and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the role. His can­di­da­cy rep­re­sents the kind of lead­er­ship the OAS ur­gent­ly re­quires; one fo­cussed on in­sti­tu­tion­al re­new­al, not po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring.

At its core, this elec­tion is a test of the OAS’s com­mit­ment to its own in­tegri­ty and pur­pose. Will mem­ber states choose a sec­re­tary gen­er­al based on com­pe­tence, ex­pe­ri­ence, and a proven track record of ad­min­is­tra­tive lead­er­ship? Or will they al­low ex­ter­nal nar­ra­tives and geopo­lit­i­cal fear­mon­ger­ing to cloud their judg­ment? The an­swer will shape not on­ly the fu­ture of the OAS but al­so its cred­i­bil­i­ty as the prin­ci­pal mul­ti­lat­er­al body of the Amer­i­c­as.

The stakes are too high for any­thing less than a leader cho­sen for his mer­it, vi­sion, and abil­i­ty to en­hance the OAS’s rel­e­vance to each of its mem­ber states – and all of them. The fu­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion de­pends on it. (CMC)