World Postal Congress Elects Kenyan Ambassador as UPU Director General

Doha, October 10 (QNA) - The 25th World Postal Congress, currently in session in Doha, has elected Kenyan Ambassador Bishar Hussein as Director General of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) for the next four years to succeed Edouard Dayan. Ambassador Bishar Hussein won 87 votes among the 159 countries that participated in the proposal process, while has rival Serena Pasini, who represented Uruguay, got 72 votes. Addressing the UPU member countries today upon his win, Bishar thanked his supporters and pledged to work with utmost dedication towards fulfilling the union's needs. Ambassador Bishar who also served as Kenya's Ambassador to UAE in 2002, extended his special thanks to former director General Dayan for his support to the international bureau. Speaking to reporters today he wished the organization would work together as one entity. Ambassador Bishar, who chaired the 24th UPU Congress back in 2008, stressed the need to take the schemes and decisions suggested by the congress members to improve the postal sector to the next level. "The organization touches the lives of people everywhere in the world. It's like the oxygen in the air," he said in a statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA). "With all the strategies which have been approved by the congress, it's the responsibility of international bureau now to facilitate the implementations of these decisions," he added. My responsibility as the next director general is to put these strategies and ideas in place to make the postal office one of the greatest institutions," he said. He also highlighted the need to resort to various dimensions when working within the postal sector. "We realize the competition is very stiff in the mail business and the postal sector must diversify in all dimensions of post office including technology and e-commerce," he added. For his part, Chairman of Q-Post Abdulrahman Ali al-Aqaili, who also presided over the 25th UPC , congratulated Ambassador Bishar on his win and wished him all success in his future tasks. Al Aqaily told QNA the electoral process went smoothly and on basis of fairness and transparency. Meanwhile, opponent candidate Dr. Serrana Bassini told QNA in an interview upon President's Bishar's win that she was yet feeling proud to be the first woman candidate to has been selected to run for the elections for the union's presidency. She hoped the Ambassador Bishar all success and called on him to take in consideration the new technology adopted in the postal sector to improve the postal service in all member countries. The Union also elected today a new deputy director general, Switzerland's, Pascal Thierry Clivaz who won 95 to 63 points to opponent United States' candidate Dennis Delehanty. (QNA)