Carlos Westendorp./ Photo: Club de Madrid
The Diplomat. Madrid
The Club de Madrid, the non profiting making international organisation comprising 110 former heads of state and democratic governments of 70 different countries, has begun the internal process to replace its Secretary-General Carlos Westendorp who will be stepping down as its chief executive on 1 July according to information supplied by the organisation to The Diplomat.
The first step has been to put an announcement in The Economist, as Westendorp’s successor may not be any of the former chief executives of Club de Madrid. In addition, he or she does not necessarily have to be a Spaniard, although the chosen candidate will have to take up residence in Madrid where it has its headquarters and, therefore, must be able to speak Spanish as well as English.
Once the list of candidates has been compiled, the election of the new secretary-general will be the responsibility of a team specifically chosen for this task and which will comprise the president -the Latvian, Vaira Vike-Freiberga-; the vice-presidents –the Bolivian Jorge Fernando Quiroga and the New Zealander Jennifer Mary Shipley-; and three former chief executives –Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ricardo Lagos (Chile) and Wim Kok (Netherlands).
This organisation constitutes the leading international forum of democratic former presidents and prime ministers, “united in providing a response to the growing demand for support among leaders along two basic lines of action: leadership for democratic governance and response to crisis and post-crisis situations”, as can be seen from its website. In the last few months, for example, it has closely followed the political situation in Venezuela and the democratic transition in Myanmar.
