Candidates Announced for the 2022 ICA Elections

The list of candidates for the ICA Presidency and Board of Directors is now available. The elections will take place at the ICA General Assembly, which will be held on 20 June 2022 in Seville, Spain.

Twenty-two candidates are standing for 15 seats on the board while three candidates are standing for the ICA president position. The mandate for the President position and board positions is four years. Information on each candidate by position is available here.  

The candidates standing for the ICA President election are:

Ariel Guarco, current President of the ICA who is standing for re-election, nominated by Confederación Cooperativa de la República Argentina (Cooperar), Argentina

Melina Morrison, nominated by Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, Australia

Jean-Louis Bancel, current Vicepresident of the ICA, nominated by Coop Fr, France

The following candidates are standing for the ICA Board, by country alphabetical order:

• David Fraser, Capricorn Society Ltd, Australia
• Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh Jatiya Samabaya Union (BJSU), Bangladesh
• Márcio Lopes de Freitas, Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB), Brazil
• Krasimir Ignatov, Central Cooperative Union Bulgaria, Bulgaria
• Alexandra Wilson, Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada, Canada
• Zhenhong Cai, All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC), China
• María Eugenia Pérez Zea, Asociación Colombiana de Cooperativa (Ascoop), Colombia
• Marjaana Saarikoski, SOK Corporation, Finland
• Germán Astul Mejia, Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Educadores de Honduras Limitada (COACEHL), Honduras
• Aditya Yadav, Indian Farm Forestry Development Cooperative Limited (IFFDC), India
• Eva Kusuma Sundari, INKUR Federation, Indonesia
• Bahman Abdollahi, Iran Chamber of Cooperatives (ICC), Iran
• Giuseppe Attilio Dadda, Alleanza Cooperative Italiane, Italy
• Toru Nakaya, JA Zenchu (Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives), Japan
• George Magutu Mwangi, Kenya Union of Savings & Credit Cooperatives (KUSCCO), Kenya
• Dato’ Kamarudin Ismail, Malaysian National Cooperative Movement, Malaysia
• Astri Liland, The Federation of Norwegian Agricultural Co-operatives, Norway
• Simona Cavazzutti, Confederación de Cooperativas Rurales del Paraguay (CONCOPAR), Paraguay
• Johan Nyhus, HSB Riksforbund, Sweden
• Iñigo Albizuri Landazabal, Confederación Española de Cooperativas de Trabajo Asociado (COCETA), Spain
• Bennett Reid, The Midcounties Co-operative, United Kingdom
• Martin Lowery, National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA), USA

Ahead of the elections, Co-op News conducted interviews with all candidates. The interviews will be available soon here.

Four ICA sectoral organisations, the youth representative, and gender equality committee representatives have been nominated by their respective constituents and will be formally elected by the General Assembly. Three Vice Presidents that were recently elected by their Regional Assemblies will be ratified by the ICA General Assembly. See the full list of General Assembly 2022 Candidates here

The list of the current ICA Board members is available here.

How does it work?

The ICA Board consists of the President, four Vice Presidents, four representatives of the global sectoral organisations, one youth representative, the Chair of the Gender Equality Committee, and fifteen other at-large members.

The sectoral organisation, youth representative, and gender equality committee representatives are nominated by their respective constituents and formally elected by the General Assembly. The Vice Presidents are the individuals elected by the ICA Regional Organisations as Regional Presidents and ratified by the ICA General Assembly.

​​The fifteen at-large Board members and the President are nominated directly by ICA members and elected at this General Assembly. The last elective General Assembly was held in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in 2017.