The Speaker of Australia's House of Representatives, Milton Dick, won the presidency of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) with 182 votes, according to T13. The election was decided in Arusha, Tanzania. Chilean Senator Rojo Edwards (independent-RN), a government-backed candidate, finished third with 21 votes.
The Speaker of Azerbaijan's National Assembly, Sahiba Gafarova, came second with 124 votes. T13 attributes the figures to Daily News. In the body of its report, T13 spells the winner's surname as "Dicker", although its headline uses "Dick".
The IPU is a forum created for dialogue between parliaments around the world. Its presidency gives international visibility to the elected legislator and the country that nominates them.
The government announced its support for Edwards in early August. The President of the Senate, Paulina Núñez (RN), and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Jorge Alessandri (UDI), had already backed his candidacy.
At the time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its support for the senator was based on "the reaffirmation of the values of peace, democracy, dialogue and cooperation" that inspire the IPU. Edwards, for his part, said the executive branch's support reflected "a shared commitment to Chile's international standing".
The source does not explain why the Chilean candidacy finished so far behind the top two. Nor does it report how the delegations voted or whether there were alliances between blocs. So far, neither Edwards nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commented publicly on the result.
The gap is wide. Dick received almost nine times as many votes as Edwards, two months after the government presented the nomination as an initiative with cross-party support in Chilean foreign policy.
