Korean favourite to take Annan job

South Korea’s foreign minister cemented his position as favourite to succeed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan when he became the only candidate to escape a veto during an informal Security Council ballot.

The Security Council was expected to hold a formal vote to pick the eighth secretary-general in the United Nations’ 60-year history on October 9, making Ban Ki-Moon’s appointment almost assured.

China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said last night: “It is quite clear that from today’s straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-Moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly.”

The 192-nation General Assembly must approve the council’s recommendation, and traditionally does so without protest.

While the informal poll is non-binding and the final vote could be different, diplomats and candidates left little doubt that Ban would win out of the six candidates.

Soon after the results became known, India’s Shashi Tharoor, the UN undersecretary-general for public information, announced he was quitting the race even though he came second to Ban in all four of the informal polls.

If Ban does indeed win the race, his selection will have been marked by unprecedented speed, consensus and calm. In the past, UN chiefs were often elected as time ran out, after heated negotiations between council nations and numerous rounds of voting.

Annan, who steps down on December 31, was himself a compromise candidate in 1996 who emerged only after the US blocked Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s bid for a second five-year term.

Annan’s example also shows how unpredictable the process can be: during informal polling at the time, France consistently opposed him before changing its vote at the last minute.

Ban would take the helm of an organisation with some 92,000 peacekeepers around the world, a £1bn (€1.49bn) annual operating budget and programs to fight hunger, assist refugees and slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The next secretary-general will also be charged with improving the world body’s image, which has been battered by sexual abuse by some peacekeepers, allegations of corruption, and the belief that it must be reformed to reflect the world of 2006, not the post-Second World War era when it was created.

Ban will have to counter widely held perceptions that he lacks charisma and is too closely tied to the US. He says that, if elected, he will focus on his role as the world’s top diplomat and leave the UN’s day-to-day operations primarily to a deputy.

In yesterday’s poll, the 15 council nations checked one of three boxes for each candidate in the secret ballot: “Encourage,” “discourage,” and “no opinion".

For the first time, the five permanent members of the council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – were given blue ballots to show the candidates if they could escape a veto.

According to the results, Ban received 14 votes in favour and a white “no opinion” ballot cast by one of the 10 rotating members of the council. Every other candidate received at least one no vote from a veto-wielding member.

Tharoor received 10 favourable votes and three against. One of those negative votes was a veto. Latvia’s President Vaira Vike-Freiberga was next with five in favour, six against – including two vetoes – and four undecided votes.

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who was the first to announce his candidacy last year, and former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani each received four votes in favour. But Ghani had 11 votes against him including three vetoes, and Surakiart had seven no-votes, among them two vetoes.

The last candidate, Jordan’s UN Ambassador Prince Zeid al Hussein, had only two votes in favour and eight against, with one veto.

Diplomats generally agree that the next secretary-general should come from Asia because of a tradition that the post rotate among the regions of the world. The last Asian secretary-general was Burma’s U Thant, who served from 1961-71.

With Ban the likely to be the next secretary-general, the UN will have to wait for at least another five years to see a woman lead the United Nations despite calls from Annan and many non-governmental organisations.

The US had also for a time rejected the idea of regional rotation, but gave up on that because of overwhelming support from other UN members.