Kev reigns down in Africa EXCLUSIVE: Botswana revealed as K-Rudd’s backer for top UN post
THE mystery backer for former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s tilt at winning the United Nations top job was the Republic of Botswana.
The southern African nation, home to meerkats and the world’s largest elephant population, where one in four adults has HIV, was the country that secretly offered to nominate Mr Rudd as UN Secretary General, despite Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s veto.
It culminated in an extraordinary phone call from the President of Botswana Ian Khama to the Lodge on Saturday, August 13, to “test the waters’’ about nominating Mr Rudd.
The call was witnessed by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who were dining with Mr Turnbull. The Prime Minister indicated that he would discuss it with senior colleagues but later called Mr Khama back and told him: “It’s entirely a matter for you.’’
Mr Khama declined to comment publicly on his secret talks with Mr Turnbull when contacted, but heaped praise on Mr Rudd.
“It may be further noted that Mr Rudd enhanced the already existing friendship and co-operation between our two countries during the time that he was prime minister, as reflected in part in President Khama’s 2010 state visit to Australia,’’ a spokesman said.
Botswana’s secret offer to back Mr Rudd is at odds with Mr Turnbull’s public claim in New York on September 23 that no country had raised the issue. “Nobody has mentioned Kevin Rudd to me,” Mr Turnbull said at the UN.
At the time, Botswana had already contacted him and Mr Rudd, who then wrote to Ms Bishop asking whether Australia would publicly campaign against him if another country nominated him.
She did not respond, perhaps fearing Mr Rudd would leak the correspondence just as he had with his emails and texts with Mr Turnbull. Mr Rudd decided not to nominate.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council endorsed former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres.
Despite Mr Turnbull’s pub- lic rebuke that Mr Rudd did not have the “temperament’’ for the job and Mr Rudd’s claim that Mr Turnbull had “concocted’’ his backflip, Botswana was still prepared to intervene.
Mr Rudd’s personal connection with Botswana runs deep. He visited in 2002 for the wedding of his brother Greg to a local woman, Okhola Rudd, who had briefly worked as an exotic dancer in a Brisbane strip club.
Mr Rudd’s backers still insist he may have had the support of up to four of five permanent members of the UN security council.
It follows Mr Rudd’s tireless stealth campaign for the job that saw him travel the globe, using his status as a former prime minister to secure the public endorsement of East Timor.