The World Health Organization's (WHO) executive board yesterday cut to five the number of candidates to take over as chief of the United Nations health agency, diplomats said.

As expected, Hong Kong's former Health Director Margaret Chan, Shigeru Omi of Japan, who heads the agency's Western Pacific regional office and Mexico's Health Minister Julio Frenk were amongst the remaining group from the initial 11 candidates.

Margaret Chan. [China Daiy]

The other two were Kuwait's Kazem Behbehani, a WHO official, and Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado.

The five will each be interviewed individually today before the 34-state executive board meets tomorrow to choose one name to recommend to the World Health Assembly, the 193-state WHO's top decision-making body. The assembly meets on Thursday.

Among the dropped-out candidates was French politician Bernard Kouchner, who founded the non-profit Doctors Without Borders, which sends volunteer medical personnel to underdeveloped countries and other trouble spots around the world. He was France's health minister in the 1990s before acting as the first UN administrator in Kosovo.

The other nominees are Health Ministers David A. Gunnarsson of Iceland and Elena Salgado Mendez of Spain; the former Prime Minister of Mozambique, Manuel Mocumbi; Kazem Behbehani, a senior WHO official from Kuwait; Nay Htun, former high-ranking UN development and environment official from Myanmar; Pekka Puska, head of Finland's national health institute; and Tomris Turmen, a Turkish woman who heads WHO's family health division

Anders Nordstrom, who has been acting director-general since Director-General Lee Jong-wook died last May, said there is no formal regional rotation for the leadership position.

"It's partly political," Nordstrom told reporters on Friday. "With these kinds of positions, there is a political dimension as always. Health is political as well. That is what WHO is about. We are a governmental organization where member states get together and agree on a global health politics. It is not party politics, but it is also politics in some of our governing body work."

Observers say Hong Kong native Chan, who was the WHO's top official for pandemic influenza as well as the assistant director-general for communicable diseases, has a good chance to be nominated, with China and other Asian countries backing her.

Mexico's Frenk is the only candidate from the Americas after Ecuadorean President Alfredo Palacio Gonzalez dropped out of the running last week. The minister is credited with revamping the country's health system by introducing an insurance system for the poor.

Frenk has been criticized by anti-tobacco groups for allegedly imposing lighter restrictions than demanded by the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Mexico has ratified.

But the complex horse-trading for votes between board members means that hard predictions are difficult to make. Votes cast by the WHO's executive board are also secret ballots, making accountability difficult.

Lee took over as director-general of WHO in 2003 as the agency was winding up its battle against the worldwide SARS outbreak. The South Korean died of bleeding in the brain, aged 61.