Nevertheless, he reports on the eligibility of some prospective candidates to the presidential elections.

The best of a dubious lot.

In Chihuahua, candidates for office claimed to have received threats, and some asked for police protection.

And now Barack Obama has announced his intention to re nominate Republican appointee Ben Bernanke to the post.

The text of this draft contract is based on the contract of the outgoing Director General.

Jang s move to the post strongly suggests that the internal struggle for power is already heating up.

Most presidents hope to attach some special meaning to their time in office.

It would have been an act of supreme cynicism and hypocrisy, even by European standards, had he been selected.

But, given his questionable fit for the job in the first place, the girlfriend issue might have been disqualifying.

On July 10, the frontrunner, Park Geun hye of the ruling Saenuri (New Frontier) Party, became the first to announce her candidacy.

The reasons for his inappropriateness for the post are too numerous to mention the single word Iraq should suffice.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, who openly considered trying again for the office, would have been a strong candidate for young voters.

Thus, his announcement that he will leave Downing Street next year is no more than a reluctant acceptance of what has been reality for some time.

The Croat Presidency seat remained vacant until 9 May, when the Parliamentary Assembly elected the Croat National Union (HDZ) candidate, Ivo Miro Jović, to the post.

Of eight highly qualified female judges and constitutional law professors who were approached, only one was willing to accept the nomination.

He also behaved, when talking to voters and citizens, as if he was tirelessly running for office for a fourth time.

So let us consider two of the leading candidates, Lawrence Summers, a former US treasury secretary, and current Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen.

And that can be a very valuable asset for an incumbent Fed chair one that no other candidate could match.

And, in his quest for modernity and transparency, he has de legitimized the symbolic dimension of his function by mixing his private and public lives.

The last thing the ECB needs is a political crony of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder assuming Mr. Issing s key post.

I'd be failing to my duties and my own conception of the royal function if I'd wish to keep on exercising whatever the cost, without being completely fit to assume my role.

This is an election year in the US if President Barack Obama had nominated a lamppost, America s newspaper of record would have found it to be possessed of excellent credentials.

Néstor Kirchner, Cristina s husband and Argentina s current president, did not want to run for office again, despite being legally permitted to do so and voters preference for him over her.

As this history suggests, it is more remarkable for a US president not to reappoint a Fed chairman named by the opposite party than to reappoint one who wishes it. Reagan s failure to reappoint Volcker and Jimmy Carter s failure to reappoint Arthur Burns are the main exceptions.

These deals were brokered at the height of the constitutional drama, when America said it would not support an attempt by the government to extend its stay in office unconstitutionally.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, who openly considered trying again for the office, would have been a strong candidate for young voters. His decision not to run disappointed many of them.

I have not excluded men a priori in this exercise, but none occurred to me, and in any case the EU establishment has too many middle aged white men as it is.

But Blair inexplicably chose to compound the mistake he had made with Brown, by announcing publicly, after having defeated the Tories for the third straight time, that he would not stand again.

The fact that Maliki, despite his incumbency, has been unable to secure a second term seven months after the elections attests to the widespread opposition to his continued rule among Iraq s political class.

But, for national leaders in the EU whose last ambition is to have to deal with a new Jacques Delors, i.e., a man with ideas of his own, a cipher like Barroso is just the man for the job.

The good news is that there is plenty of historical evidence to suggest that, once in office, the candidate develops an understanding of the issues and a feel for the nuances in managing them a fact that should be calming to the international public.

CAMBRIDGE Some critics complain that US President Barack Obama campaigned on inspirational rhetoric and an ambition to bend the arc of history, but then turned out to be a transactional and pragmatic leader once in office.

That changed in 2012, when Leung Chun ying was appointed as Hong Kong s chief executive. China s first choice for the position, Henry Tang, was forced to withdraw because of private indiscretions and a disgraceful bid to have his wife take the fall for a zoning violation.

While Uzbekistan did not make out of old Karimov a leadership cult on the scale seen in neighbouring Turkmenistan or even in Kazakhstan, there is no question that the regime's identity is tied up in his persona, raising fears of a power vacuum and instability once he leaves power.

It is often said that populists cannot govern, or will be exposed as incompetent, when elected to office. According to this view, populist parties are essentially protest parties, and protest cannot govern, because it is impossible to protest against oneself.

Remarkably, in their resignation to the apparently inevitable choice for the top position, emerging market leaders do not seem to realize that they should still challenge the United States prerogative of appointing the Fund s extremely powerful number two official.