After a month of political maneuvering, speculation and more than a healthy dose of good old-fashioned rumor mongering, the World Anti-Doping Association did as expected on Saturday and elected former Australian Finance Minister John Fahey as the organization’s president for the next three years.

Predicted opposition to Fahey’s candidacy by European members of the WADA Foundation board of directors resulted only in formal abstentions by four members and no vote by Russia’s representative on the panel.

The board also elected International Olympic Committee medical commission head Arne Ljungquist, as vice president of the anti-doping agency.

Fahey reportedly had the backing of several governments, including Canada, the United States and Australia, when he entered the race to replace Dick Pound, who is slated to end his term as WADA president at the end of the year. The presumptive replacement, Jean-Francois Lamour, the former sports minister of France, left the race in protest soon after Fahey’s candidacy was announced.

Pound characterized Fahey’s election as “unanimous, in that there were no votes in opposition and four members choosing not to vote.” Russian representative Vyacheslav Fetisov later told reporters “I did not vote,” adding that he also had not “formally abstained,” drawing a subtle distinction not immediately apparent to most observers.

Meeting reporters after the vote Fahey expressed hope that the events of recent days would take away from a focus “on the work accomplished these past three days.”

But the confusion surrounding the presidential succession dominated the three-day conference, since whichever candidate was ultimately selected would be the first to replace Pound, who has led the organization since its creation in 1999.

The organization is governed by a 38-member board, whose membership is evenly divided between national governments and sports federations affiliated with the IOC. At the creation of WADA it was agreed that its presidency would rotate between both sides, with the expectation that the IOC would support the single candidate that the governments had chosen by “consensus.”

Had Lamour stayed in the race, the 19 government members of the panel were slated to make a choice between the two candidates sometime between the September 20 close of nominations and this week’s conference. Pound and other IOC members have repeatedly said that they would support whatever candidate the governments put forward, “as long as they sent us (the board) a single name that they had already agreed upon.”

Lamour’s decision to withdraw – four weeks after nominations had closed – left Fahey as the sole candidate and left the five European members of the WADA foundation scrambling for a replacement. Speculation this week centered around former French sports minister Guy Drut, but that effort came to nothing after Pound made it clear that “nominations ended on September 20. End of story.”

Board member Christoph Bergner, representing Germany and acting as spokesman for other European members, forwarded a proposal to delay the selection of a new president for six months until Pound’s replacement could be selected.

“We express our belief that it is in WADA’s strong interest to have a chair whose designation and election is decided by consensus,” Bergner told the meeting. “We regret that the internal process among public authorities for the designation of a candidate was ruled by procedures which did not have the prior agreement and the consensus of all public authorities.”

But Pound rejected the proposal, likening it to a 400-meter running race in which one of the competitors pulls a hamstring.

“You can’t just ask to start the race over at that point,” Pound said.

Fahey said he would continue to live in Australia and work closely with Ljungquist, who resides in Sweden, and the staff at WADA’s Montreal headquarters.

“In this age of telephones, e-mail, video communication and all, that won’t be an issue,” Fahey said.

The decision may put more put more of the agency’s day-to-day management responsibilities on the agency’s Montreal-based staff. WADA director general David Howman said plans had already been afoot for an off-site president.

“We were already preparing for Jean-Francois Lamour, a president we expected would not always be there on-site as well,” Howman said, adding that despite the fact that Pound practices law in Montreal, “much of our interaction on a day-to-day basis was electronic, in the form of a telephone call or an e-mail… he was not in the office all the time, either.”

Howman said that the role of the president is “to be out front” and to put a public face on the war against doping in sport.

Fahey said that he was committed to continue Pound’s approach to work “and his tireless commitment to that fight. As for my personal style, my personal approach, I will leave that to you to judge. Every person is different. I am different from Richard; perhaps my approach will be different, too.”

The ever-quotable Pound, too, said there might be changes in leadership style at WADA in the months to come.

“The next version of WADA will not feature the shy, retiring and diplomatic leadership that I might have personified these past years,” Pound said. “No more Mr. Nice Guy. So if you’re out there cheating, your days are numbered.”

Fahey assumes the WADA presidency on January first and is limited to two three-year terms, before the leadership changes back to an IOC candidate for the post.