The four candidates vying to lead the World Trade Organisation (WTO) launched their campaigns today promising to accelerate free trade talks and get a fair deal for developing countries.
Anxious to avoid the bitter divisions of six years ago, the WTO has set a clear timetable for selection which it hopes will throw up a consensus candidate without any need to go to a vote by the 148 member states.
The four challengers are former European Union trade chief Mr Pascal Lamy, Mauritian Foreign Minister Mr Jaya Krishna Cuttaree, Brazil's ambassador to the Geneva-based body Mr Felipe Seixas Correa, and a Uruguayan former chairman of the WTO's executive General Council Mr Carlos Perez del Castillo.
"We have learned our lessons. We do not want a repeat of last time," said Mr Perez del Castillo, who was the first to announce his bid to succeed current WTO director-general Mr Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand, due to leave in August.
He was referring to an arrangement forced upon the WTO when the job last changed hands in 1999, under which Mr Supachai and his rival at the time, former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore, had to share the post with both serving for three years.
The animosity contributed to the dramatic failure later that year of the Seattle ministerial, which set back the launch of the trade round for two years until 2001 in the Qatari capital.
Campaigning runs until end March, then the head of the General Council, on which all states sit, will try to cut the field, first to two and then just to one before the end of May.
Mr Lamy's greater international renown may have made him an obvious early favourite, but Geneva diplomats warn that he is far from being a shoo-in to a job which carries much prestige but little in the way of real power.