Ariel Guarco re-elected as ICA President

A new Board of Directors was also appointed.

The members of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) have renewed the mandate of Ariel Guarco for the next four years. From a total of 769 total votes, Mr Guarco has been re-elected President of the ICA with 445 of the votes. The elections took place at the ICA General Assembly, in Seville, Spain.

Ariel Guarco has been a cooperator since his youth, through his involvement in the Electric Cooperative of Coronel Pringles, in the southern part of Argentina. He has been the President of the ICA member Cooperative Confederation of the Argentine Republic (COOPERAR) since 2011, and he was a Board member of Cooperatives of the Americas from 2014-2018. Mr. Guarco has been an ICA Board member since 2013 and elected President of the ICA in November 2017. 

He said: “I am humbled to be re-elected president of the ICA. In these four years I have done my best to meet the commitments of my mandate and I will offer once again my commitment, my dedication and my enthusiasm to move forward in a new chapter where we can crystallize new achievements.” 

"I feel that this is not a personal triumph. I feel that it is the ratification of a vision, of a series of proposals and of a way of understanding the cooperative movement that we have been building together and that enables us to continue to put the ICA in the place it should be: built from the bottom up, with the contribution of each of its members, with an increasing number and diversity of cooperatives represented, and with a growing role in the main debates that are taking place on a global scale."

Two other candidates were standing for ICA President: Melina Morrison, who obtained 164 votes, nominated by Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals, Australia, and Jean-Louis Bancel, who obtained 160 votes, nominated by Coop FR, France. 

ICA At Large Board of Directors
A new Board of Directors has also been elected. Twenty-two candidates were standing for 15 seats on the Board. The elected Board members are:

• Márcio Lopes de Freitas , Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB), Brazil
• Aditya Yadav, Indian Farm Forestry Development Cooperative Limited (IFFDC), India
• Giuseppe Attilio Dadda , Italian Cooperative Alliance, Italy
• George Magutu Mwangi , Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (KUSCCO), Kenya
• Iñigo Albizuri Landazabal , Spanish Confederation of Worker Cooperatives (COCETA), Spain
• Zhenhong Cai, All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC), China
• Martin Lowery, National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA CLUSA), USA
• Toru Nakaya , JA Zenchu ​​(Central Union of Agricultural Co-operatives), Japan
• Bahman Abdollahi, Iran Chamber of Cooperatives (ICC), Iran
• María Eugenia Pérez Zea , Colombian Association of Cooperatives (Ascoop), Colombia
• Krasimir Ignatov , Central Cooperative Union Bulgaria, Bulgaria
• Dato' Kamarudin Ismail , Malaysian National Cooperative Movement, Malaysia
• Marjaana Saarikoski , SOK Corporation, Finland
• Ben Reid, The Midcounties Co-operative, United Kingdom - corrected 1 July 2022
• Alexandra Wilson, Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada, Canada

The full ICA Members at Large results can be found here.

Four ICA sectoral organisations representatives were nominated by their respective constituents and formally elected by the General Assembly. They are Dr. Carlos Zarco from the International Health Cooperative Organisation (IHCO), Blase Lambert from Cooperative Housing International (CHI), Sung-hee Lee from the International Cooperative Agricultural Organisation (ICAO) and Shaun Tarbuck from International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF). The youth representative - Ana Aguirre, from Spain, and gender equality chair- Xiomara Nuñez de Cespedes from the Dominican Republic were also formally elected. Three Vice Presidents who were recently elected by their Regional Assemblies were ratified by the ICA General Assembly. They are High Chief Oriyomi Ayeola from ICA Africa, Chandrapal Singh Yadav from ICA-Asia Pacific, and Susanne Westhausen from Cooperatives Europe.

The list of ICA Board members for the mandate 2022-2026 can be found here.

"Our duty, as the International Cooperative Alliance, is to continue to strengthen the cooperative movement in every corner of the world, to continue to give a voice to every community, so that it can express itself with all its economic, social and cultural potential. But above all, to continue to provide a common Identity and to continue to be the beacon that guides this extraordinary movement of more than one billion members associated with three million cooperatives on every continent. We must continue to demonstrate that global challenges must be overcome through dialogue and cooperation, being an example, as we are, of unity in diversity.", said the President Ariel Guarco. 

Around 400 cooperative leaders from 60 countries gathered in Seville, for the General Assembly. The General Assembly also included a speech from the President of COOPUkraine, an ICA member from Ukraine, who offered a speech to the audience sharing the situation of the cooperative movement in the country and calling for support.

More information on the events in Seville will be available soon.