Emeka Anyaoku, then Secretary General of the Commonwealth, addresses the media during a press conference in November 1999. (Odd Andersen/AFP)

• Candidates from The Gambia, Lesotho and Ghana vie for Commonwealth secretary-general’s post.
• The candidates will engage in a public debate next week Wednesday.
• The organisation’s 56 members, more than a third from Africa, will vote in October at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa in October.

Thanks to a regional rotation, the next Commonwealth secretary-general is due to come from Africa, and candidates from Lesotho, Ghana, and The Gambia are all keen to get the job for the next four to eight years.

Career diplomat Joshua Setipa (55) from Lesotho, The Gambia’s foreign affairs minister Mamadou Tangara (59), and Ghanaian foreign affairs and regional integration minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey (61) are in the running, with a selection due from next month.

Whoever gets it will run the organisation during a decisive time, said Anne Therese Gallagher, director-general of the Commonwealth Foundation.

She said:

Africa makes up more than a third of the Commonwealth’s 56 member states.

Next week, the candidates are due to debate in an event hosted by the Commonwealth Foundation, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as Chatham House.

After the debate, the 56 member states will vote at this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, running into late October.

There have been six Commonwealth secretary-generals since 1965.

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Nigerian Emeka Anyaoku, who served from 1990 to 2000 as the organisation’s third, is the only African to ever lead the Commonwealth.

Candidates for the position are nominated by Commonwealth member states and elected once every four years by the heads of government.

They can serve a maximum of two terms.

The outgoing secretary-general is Patricia Scotland from Dominica. She represents the rotational turn of the Canada-Caribbean region.

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