The ex-mayor of Miami Maurice Ferre was elected president of the American Institute for Democracy (IID), a position he will assume on January 1 and in which he succeeds the Cuban writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner.
Ferre, elected unanimously, was until now a member of the IID Advisory Board and a member of the International Relations Committee, according to a statement from the Miami-based institute.
Montaner has chaired the IID for more than three years, in which he has contributed to the growth of this non-profit institution, which is made up of academics, politicians, professionals, workers and entrepreneurs from American countries and Spain.
The IID, whose executive director is the former Bolivian minister Carlos Sánchez BerzaÃn, who has been living in the United States since 2003, is defined as “a center of pluralist and nonpartisan thinking that promotes freedom, democracy, human rights and institutionality.”
The institute conducts academic research, colloquia, conferences, forums and events and has a publishing fund that has published more than 50 books in English and Spanish.
On January 16 the IID will distinguish Montaner with the order of “Knight of the Republic” in recognition of its management.
Ferre, born in Puerto Rico 83 years ago, was mayor of Miami from 1973 to 1985, and in 2010 he competed unsuccessfully for being a candidate for a seat in the Senate for the Democratic Party.
