South Korean foreign minister still leads UN secretary general race

Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa
Published: Thursday September 28, 2006

New York- South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon remains the favourite to succeed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan next year, after topping a third informal vote by the UN Security Council Thursday. The vote, which the 15-nation council called a straw poll, was purely a preliminary step to sound out support or rejection of candidates for the UN's top job.

The votes cast were anonymous and gave equal opportunity to all council members to express their opinion without distinction between the veto powers - the US, Russia, China, France and Britain - and the 10 non-permanent members.

Diplomats said Ban received 13 votes in favour, one against and one abstention. Ban also led the list of candidates in the two previous votes in July and August. In August he received 14 in favour and one against. There was no way of knowing which country voted against Ban because ballots carried no names of countries, diplomats said.

Ban was followed by Sashi Tharoor of India, who received eight in favour, three against and four abstentions.

Third was Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberger, who received seven in favour, six against and two abstentions.

Council members gave no information about the votes for the other four candidates, who are Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sithirathai, Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, Jordanian Prince Zeid Raad Zeid al-Hussein and former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani.

UN ambassadors Kenzo Oshima of Japan and Wang Guangya of China said the five permanent members would use their veto power for the first time in the selection process next week in order to narrow down the field of candidates.

They said a formal and possible final vote would be taken on October 15. The council's choice will then be presented to the 192- nation UN General Assembly for its approval.

Annan will step down on December 31 after a 10-year tenure.

Council members said they agreed to end the selection process in October in order to give the newly elected secretary general time to prepare for the job.

"We have reached the time in the decision-making process, both for the candidates and the governments on the Security Council, that it would be useful to know where the permanent members and the non- permanent members stand," US Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday.

Diplomats said the application of the veto is inevitable to speed up the selection process. Since the UN was established after World War II, the secretary general has effectively been chosen by the five permanent members before opening it up for approval by the council and assembly.

Attempts this year to produce new rules for the selection process became bogged down because of disagreements between the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

The US wants the secretary general to limit his or her role to that of a chief administrative officer, similar to a big corporation. But some secretary generals, including Annan, have used the role to become a top world diplomat and less of an administrator.

Ten years ago, Annan was proposed as a last minute candidate to replace then secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali of Egypt, who wanted a second term. He was rejected by the United States, which then turned to Annan, a long-standing UN diplomat.

© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa