By Edwin Musoni
The Commonwealth Heads of Government have re-appointed Baroness Patricia Scotland as the Secretary General of the Commonwealth.
The decision was arrived at on June 24, during the Executive Session of the bloc’s leaders during the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali.
The session was closed to the media but an official from the Commonwealth secretariat said that Scotland’s re-appointment had to be put to a vote “because there was a challenger.”
“Leaders of the Commonwealth have made a decision by consensus to reappoint Secretary-General, The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland, QC, for a further two years to complete the balance of her period in office,” reads a statement from the Secretariat.
A Commonwealth Secretary-General can serve a maximum of two terms of four years each.
However, Scotland’s first term has lasted for six years as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which delayed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting by two years.
She was elected to the post at CHOGM summit in Malta in 2015, and took office on April 1, 2016, becoming the second secretary-general from the Caribbean and the first woman to hold the post.
Scotland was standing against Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kamina Johnson.
In her previous interview with The New Times in the run up to the Kigali meeting, Scotland said that she is getting a positive response on a daily basis, and more than half of the countries are responding in her favour.-newtimes.co.rw
