The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will elect its ninth Secretary General at the 152nd IPU Assembly, which will be held in Istanbul, Türkiye from 15 to 19 April 2026. The IPU’s Governing Council, made up of parliamentarians from the IPU’s 183 Member Parliaments, will elect the new Secretary General on 19 April 2026 for a term of four years.
The meeting will be attended by Numan Kurtulmuş, Speaker of the GNAT, as well as foreign parliamentary speakers, Turkish and foreign parliamentarians, senior bureaucrats, and heads of foreign missions. The general theme of the meeting has been set as “Nurturing hope, securing peace and ensuring justice for future generations”
Within the framework of the Assembly, meetings of the IPU’s standing committees and relevant parliamentary bodies will be held; sessions and side events will be organized on topics such as post-conflict peacebuilding, economic cooperation, parliamentarians’ human rights, empowerment of persons with disabilities, interfaith dialogue, the Palestinian issue, and climate change. Additionally, the election of the new IPU Secretary-General and the adoption of the new IPU Strategy covering the 2027–2032 period are anticipated.
The Secretary General serves as the Chief Executive of the Organization, overseeing the management of the Secretariat and reporting directly to the IPU Governing Council. Together with the President, the Secretary General helps to shape and carry out the IPU’s strategic plans, guided by the Executive Committee.
The successful candidate will replace the outgoing Secretary General, Martin Chungong, who was first elected in 2014, making history by becoming the first African and the first non-European in the position. Martin Chungong was re-elected twice and finishes his third and last term on 30 June 2026.
Five candidates have made it to the shortlist for this role. Below is an overview of each candidate, listed alphabetically.
Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou (Greece):
Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou of Greece is an expert in public international law, specializing in the environment. She currently serves as the Greek Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for the Ocean and is the Chair of the Special Permanent Committee on Environmental Protection of the Hellenic Parliament. She is also the head attorney at Avgerinopoulou Law Offices, and the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the European Institute of Law, Science and Technology in Athens, Greece.
She first became an MP in 2009 and has been elected for four terms to the Greek Parliament. She represented the Twelve Plus Group as a member of the Executive Committee of the IPU between October 2023 and October 2025, and was President of the IPU Standing Committee on United Nations Affairs between March 2014 and March 2015.
Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Athens, a Master of Laws from Georgetown University in Washington D.C., and a Doctorate in Juridical Science from Columbia University in New York.
Anda Filip (Romania):
Anda Filip of Romania has worked at the IPU for over 20 years, and has been Director for Member Parliaments and External Relations since 2011. From 2003 to 2011, she was the Permanent Observer of the IPU to the United Nations in New York. She has served as Secretary of 25 IPU Assemblies, as well as Secretary of the IPU Standing Committees on Peace and International Security and on United Nations Affairs.
She also served as a diplomat in the Romanian Foreign Ministry in roles including Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the International Organizations based in Geneva, Minister Counsellor with the Romanian Embassy in Washington D.C. and Ministry Spokesperson.
Anda Filip holds a bachelor’s degree in philology (English and French) from the University of Bucharest, and a master’s in international relations from the National School of Political Sciences and Public Administration in Bucharest. She also has a Certificate of Diplomatic Specialization from the International Institute of Public Administration in Paris.
Sangsoo Jun (Republic of Korea):
Sangsoo Jun of the Republic of Korea worked in the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea for 30 years, and held roles such as Deputy Secretary-General, Chief Counsel of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, Head of the Office of Planning and Coordination, and Director of the Division of Parliamentary Proceedings. From 1997 to 1999, he served as Deputy Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Division of the Korean National Assembly. He is currently a Senior Advisor to Samsung, providing strategic legal counsel.
Sangsoo Jun holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration and a Master of Laws from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Republic of Korea, as well as a Master of Laws and a Juris Doctor from Duke University in North Carolina. He also holds a certificate in transnational law from the University of Hong Kong.
Fatou Dieng Thiam (Senegal):
Fatou Dieng Thiam of Senegal is the Director of Political Affairs at the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes Region at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya. She has worked for the UN for nearly 30 years in peace-keeping missions, including as the Head of the Regional Office for the Mopti Region of Central Mali for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, as the Senior Women’s Protection Advisor at the UN Mission in South Sudan, and as an Electoral Logistics Officer at the UN Mission in Haiti. She has also worked for the High Commissioner for Human Rights on technical assistance in Switzerland, Republic of the Congo and Cameroon.
Fatou Dieng Thiam holds a bachelor’s degree in Arabic from the University of Dakar, and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Geneva. She also holds certificates in Arabic from the Universities of Paris Sorbonne and Tunis.
Cecilia Widegren (Sweden):
Cecilia Widegren of Sweden was an MP in the Swedish Parliament for two decades and held several leadership roles such as Group Leader of the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on Health and Welfare, Chair of the Swedish Delegation to NATO, Chair of the Swedish Defence Commission, and Chair of the Swedish Delegation to the IPU. She represented the Twelve Plus Group as a member of the Executive Committee of the IPU between October 2019 and March 2023, and was Chair of both the Sub-Committee on Finance and the Working Group on Transparency, Accountability and Openness.
Cecilia Widegren studied political science at the University of Linköping, Sweden, economics and statistics at the University of Skövde, Sweden, and International Relations at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu.
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)