By Gabrielle T&eacute;trault-Farber and Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -European countries and the&nbsp;United States are&nbsp;running rival candidates to head the U.N.&nbsp;migration&nbsp;agency&nbsp;in an&nbsp;unusually&nbsp;tense&nbsp;contest&nbsp;between allies that&nbsp;opens&nbsp;in Geneva on Monday.
More than 100 million people are forcibly displaced around the world and the International Organization for&nbsp;Migration's (IOM) seeks to ensure humane and orderly&nbsp;migration, intervening in emergencies to help the vulnerable.
Its 175 member states will vote by secret ballot in closed-door meetings starting on Monday morning.
The candidates are IOM deputy director Amy Pope, a former White House advisor personally backed by&nbsp;U.S. President Joe Biden, and her boss Ant&oacute;nio Vitorino from Portugal who has&nbsp;run&nbsp;the organisation since 2018.
Pope announced her campaign last year and took&nbsp;unpaid leave from IOM to focus on it from March, tweeting pictures of herself meeting officials all over the world. She pledges to "proactively address the challenges of&nbsp;migration&nbsp;and harness its benefits" and says she will focus on its root causes.
Vitorino, a former&nbsp;European Commissioner who is close to&nbsp;United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, has touted an increase in the body's annual budget among his successes.
Asked about the&nbsp;contest, he admitted it was&nbsp;unprecedented.
"We have never happened to have an incumbent director general that faces a competition with one of his deputy generals. Let's call it an innovation," he told journalists. He said he had Portugal's backing as well as the "strong encouragement" of the&nbsp;European&nbsp;Union.
Diplomats said there had been strong pressure from both candidates in recent weeks and expect multiple rounds of votes in order for one candidate to score the two-thirds majority required by the IOM constitution. Both have privately told them they are confident of success.
One diplomat jokingly expressed relief that the ballot would be secret, to avoid drawing the wrath of either Brussels or Washington.
Voting could&nbsp;run&nbsp;into Tuesday, depending on the number of rounds.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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U.S. vs Europe: Tense contest to run UN migration agency opens