Edmond Auguste Mulet Lesieur (born 13 March 1951) is a

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

n diplomat, lawyer and notary public. He was appointed Head of the independent three-member panel to lead the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism on 27 April 2017. Mulet served as the last Chief of Staff to

United Nations Secretary-General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

Ban Ki-moon. Previously, he was Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations at the

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. He was appointed to this position on 2 June 2011. He was the

Special Representative of the Secretary-General A special representative of the Secretary-General is a highly respected expert who has been appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General, Secretary-General of the United Nations to represent them in meetings with heads of state on critical huma ...

and head of mission of MINUSTAH, having assumed the functions of acting head of mission in the immediate aftermath of the

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, in which the previous head of mission, Hédi Annabi of

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, perished, along with his deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa of

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, and the acting police commissioner,

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Supt. Doug Coates of

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, when the mission's headquarters in Port-au-Prince collapsed. Mulet served a previous term in this position between June 2006 and August 2007. Immediately prior to taking up his post, he was

Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations. Prior to this, he was

's ambassador to the

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, the

Kingdom of Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southe ...

and the

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, where he represented his country in the preparatory negotiations for free trade agreements between Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union. He was a presidential candidate in both the 2019 and the 2023 Guatemalan general elections.

Personal life

Mulet received his primary education in Guatemala City, Montreal, New York City and Bern. He studied law and social studies at Guatemala City's Universidad Mariano Gálvez. He is married and has two sons. He is fluent in Spanish, English and French.

Career

During the 1980s, Mulet was accused of belonging to an illegal adoption ring that facilitated the departure of babies from the country, posing as tourists. In 1981, he was arrested for falsifying adoption paperwork but the charges were later dropped. In 1984, Mulet was again investigated for falsifying adoption paperwork, but no charges were filed against him. Mulet was first elected to Congress in 1982. He was a candidate to the 1984 National Constituent Assembly, and was re-elected to Congress for the period 1986–1991. In 1990, he was re-elected for the period 1991–1996. During his years in Congress, he was involved in the Central American peace process, the Esquipulas Accords, and the Guatemalan Peace negotiations. He was also a member of the Guatemalan-Belize Commission, first as a representative of Congress and later as a delegate from the executive branch. In 1992 he became President of Congress. In 1993, he was appointed Ambassador to the

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, a post from which he resigned following the self-coup of President Jorge Serrano Elías in 1993. Following the restoration of democratic rule, Mulet resumed his functions until 1996. During those years, he was a regular lecturer at think-tanks, universities and colleges across the

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, and at the

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in Washington, D.C. Upon his return to Guatemala in 1996, he was elected general secretary of the Unión del Centro Nacional party. Mulet served as the United Nations Special Representative for Haiti from 2005 to 2007. In 2007, Mulet was appointed as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, a post he held from 2007 to 2010 and again from 2011 to 2015. On 31 March 2010, Mulet was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). He succeeded late Hédi Annabi of Tunisia, who perished in the

. He was a presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, obtaining 11% of the vote in the first round. Defining himself as centrist, he opposed the legalization of marriage for same-sex couples and the right to abortion. He was also a presidential candidate in the 2023 general election. He promised to build a high-security prison and to raise police salaries. He also said that Guatemala was moving towards a more authoritarian style of governance.

References

External links

UN Biography: Edmond MuletMINUSTAH Leadership
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mulet, Edmond Guatemalan diplomats Guatemalan officials of the United Nations Members of the Congress of Guatemala Presidents of the Congress of Guatemala 1951 births Living people Ambassadors of Guatemala to the European Union Ambassadors of Guatemala to Belgium Ambassadors of Guatemala to Luxembourg Ambassadors of Guatemala to the United States Politicians from Guatemala City 20th-century Guatemalan people 21st-century Guatemalan lawyers Universidad Mariano Gálvez alumni