The InterDependent

A former president of Switzerland has been selected to become the 65th president of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2010.

Joseph Deiss, 64, will be elected as the West European and Others Group (WEOG) candidate for General Assembly president on Friday, the first Westerner to hold the position in five years and the first Swiss occupant of the post.

Dr. Deiss succeeds Ali Abdussalam Treki of Libya, who will finish his one-year term on Sept.14.

The General Assembly president – the head of the UN General Assembly when it is convened – is elected annually using a regional rotation among Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, West European and Others Group and Asia to determine which nationality takes the rein. This year the presidency is headed by a delegate of WEOG, which includes Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.

In all other regions, the General Assembly presidency is typically a noncompetitive process, where regions operate on a first-come, first-serve basis for naming a candidate. But West European and Others Group is the exception, using competitive elections in promoting their candidate. Dr. Deiss beat out Luis Michel of Belgium to win the nomination.

“We are proud that a Swiss citizen has been made the official candidate of WEOG,” said Johann Aeschlimann, press officer for the Swiss mission to the UN in New York. “We like to see this as not only the appreciation of our candidate, but also as a contribution of Switzerland to the UN.”

Switzerland, historically known for its political neutrality in most international affairs, did not join the UN until 2002 – an accession campaign headed by Dr. Deiss when he was the Swiss minister of foreign affairs. Besides being president of Switzerland, Dr. Deiss was also minister of the economy, a board member of the World Bank and a member of the Swiss parliament. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and attended Collège Saint-Michel in Fribourg, the University of Fribourg and King’s College at Cambridge University. He is fluent in French, German, English and Italian and is married with three sons.

Dr. Deiss’s tenure as president will be a relief for Western nations after experiencing three presidents who, to varying degrees, were outspoken against the West and hindered Western interests at the UN, said Samir Sanbar, a former Lebanese journalist and UN insider who runs the blog unforum.com.

“A transparent and effective management of GA meetings is obviously in the interest of the West, especially the United States,” Sanbar added in an e-mail to UNA-USA. “A strict Swiss approach could revive the traditional credibility of the president’s office.”

Switzerland and Libya have publicly engaged in spats since 2008, including cutting off economic relations with each other, but the transition to the presidency may go smoothly, said a spokesman at the Libyan mission to the UN.

Ahmed H. Gebreel, an election officer at the Libyan mission in New York who was involved in the preparation of Treki’s presidency, said that he didn’t think there would be tension between the two nations as Dr. Deiss takes over the job.

“I assume we will follow the UN practice and the rules in assisting the next president in transitioning into the new office,” Gebreel said.

Support from the West is strong in the lead-up to Dr. Deiss’s election on Friday. Britain, a permanent member of the Security Council, said in a statement, “We welcome the appointment of Joseph Deiss and look forward to working with him on a range of issues.”