Eight candidates to take over as the next UN Secretary General are due to attend a first-of-a-kind informal hearing starting April 12, Tuesday.

These include Irina Bokova, the UNESCO Director-General whose candidacy was put forward by Bulgaria, who will be among the first three to attend the hearings as early as Tuesday, at  11:00 EDT (15:00 GMT / 18:00 EEST). The other two include Montenegro's former PM Igor Luksic (13:00 GMT) and former Portuguese PM and UNHCR Antonio Guterres (19:00 GMT).

UN officials hope the unprecedented procedure will help boost transparency in the election process, which will purportedly include a higher-profile role for the UN General Assembly than before (the Security Council vote has always dominiated the process until now).

In a matter of two hours, each candidate will have to deal with a short oral presentation and a Q&A session. Apart from UN officials, civil society groups will also have the opportunity to pose questions.

Separately, all candidates (with the exception of New Zealand's Helen Clark as of the moment) have submitted written statements that have already drawn fire for being too "vague".

The entire schedule of the hearings is available here, along with candidates' vision statements.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!