US challenger Pope elected new UN migration chief

White House veteran Amy Pope will become the first woman to head the UN's International Organisation for Migration after beating her boss Antonio Vitorino in a leadership vote.

"Humbled and honoured to be chosen as the next Director General of (IOM)," Pope said in a tweet, minutes after member states elected her by acclamation after Portugal's former deputy prime minister Vitorino bowed to her lead and withdrew.

The IOM announced in a statement that she would become the organisation's first woman chief on October 1.

After an unusually acrimonious leadership battle that pitted the United States against its European allies, the IOM's 175 member were asked Monday to vote by secret ballot on who should steer the organisation for the next five years.

After a first round of voting, Pope was clearly in the lead, missing just 12 votes to reach the two-thirds majority needed to declare victory.

Instead of allowing the vote to go to a second round, Vitorino decided to bow out of the race.

"I am ready to work with ALL our member states and global partners to unleash the opportunities provided by effective, orderly and humane migration," Pope said in her tweet.

The IOM was founded in 1951 to handle the displacements in Europe following World War II but the agency only joined the UN fold 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 agency 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 invested heavily in ushering an American back into a traditionally US-held leadership role -- and its European allies, observers said.

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, had appeared defiant before the vote.

"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 enjoyed particularly strong support from European countries and had been praised for effectively leading the rapidly expanding organisation.

But Pope, 49, appears to have managed to convince countries in other regions where she has relentlessly campaigned, insisting a fresh vision was needed to take IOM "into the 21st century".

"We're still kind of stuck in old ways of looking at migration," Pope told AFP in March.

She has called for a broader focus on the impacts of climate change on migration, which she dubbed "one of the most significant challenges for our generation".

"With evolving threats posed by climate & conflict, together we can assist vulnerable communities on the move seeking protection & deliver on the promise of migration," she tweeted Monday.

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

US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have weighed in on her behalf in recent days.

But observers said Washington's push might be less about the individuals involved and more about reasserting its traditional hold on the IOM director general post.

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.

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