Guterres front runner for UN post
FIRST POLL: Ex-PM of Portugal ahead in race to be next secretary-general
PORTUGAL’S former prime minister, Antonio Guterres, topped the first informal poll to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the next United Nations secretary-general on Jan 1 next year followed by Slovenia’s former president, Danilo Turk.
Two diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the vote was secret, said three candidates had the same support for third place — Irina Bokova of Bulgaria who heads the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Serbia’s former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic and former Macedonian foreign minister Srgjan Kerim.
The 15 council members decided not to reveal the results of their voting to “encourage”, “discourage” or express “no opinion” about the 12 candidates — unlike the informal “straw” polls 10 years ago, which were made public and led to Ban’s election to the post.
By tradition, the job of secretarygeneral has rotated among regions and Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have all held the top post. East European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a secretary-general. There has also never been a woman secretarygeneral and 56 nations are campaigning for the first female chief.
Bokova got nine “encourage” votes, the highest number for a woman, the diplomats said. New Zealand’s former prime minister, Helen Clark, was in fourth place with eight “encourage” votes.
Argentina’s foreign minister, Susanna Malcorra, a former chief-ofstaff to Ban, who was expected to be a leading contender, was behind Clark, they said.
Guterres, who was Portugal’s centre-left socialist prime minister from 1995 to 2002 and served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees until the end of last year, received 12 “encourage” votes and three “no opinion” votes, the diplomats said.
Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santo Silva, called the vote “an extremely positive result, given the great quality of the other candidates”, telling the media in Washington that “it gives a clear incentive to the candidature of Guterres and confirms that he’s qualified for the position of secretary-general”.
Turk, who served as Slovenia’s first UN ambassador from 1992 to 2000 and was the UN assistant secretary-general for political affairs from 2000 to 2005, received 11 “encourage” votes, two “discourage” and two “no opinion”. AP