Who Will Be Next UN Secretary-General?

“A hundred times more difficult to guess than the winner of the World Cup”

As the term of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N., will expire at the end of this year, one of the hottest issues in U.N. headquarters in New York is who will be the next secretary general.

Strengths and weaknesses-

Foreign Policy, a U.S. magazine specializing in diplomacy, ran an article on the strong and weak points of the prospective U.N. Secretary General candidates, including Ban Ki-moon, the foreign minister of Korea.

Foreign Policy cited Sri Lanka’s Jayantha Dhanapala, the former UN Under-Secretary General, as the most powerful candidate as he is well acquainted with the U.N.’s work based on his long experience of working for the U.N. The diplomacy magazine also referred to Minister Ban and Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai as powerful candidates.

According to the magazine, Minister Ban’s strength is that he is highly likely to be supported by the U.S. and China, the two most influential nations among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Minister Ban, however, is less likely to gain the united support of other Asian countries, including the 10 members of the ASEAN. Sathirathai’s strength is broad support from Asian countries. However, there is a possibility of Muslim opposition as Thailand took tough measures against Muslim rebels in the southern part of the country. Moreover, at only 47, he may be a little too young to lead the U.N.

Foreign Policy also cited the former president of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, and Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, but reported that they are strongly opposed by Russia. Some are discussing former U.S. president Bill Clinton as a candidate. However, as there has never been a Secretary General from a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, his candidacy is considered unlikely at U.N. headquarters.

Minister Ban’s strategy-

On May 31, Minister Ban made a speech on U.N. reform at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Manhattan, New York, and had Q&A session. It was his first public appearance as a prospective candidate for Secretary General.

He answered questions in fluent English, but his overall answers had nothing much out of expectations. Responding to such assessment at a talk with correspondents stationed in New York, he said, “My basic strategy is not to engage in an overly aggressive campaign.” In other words, he is pursuing a low key strategy, thinking that being too aggressive might cause a backlash.

The final winner-

Although there are many candidates discussed, the landscape of the race is not clear. The five permanent members of the Security Council who will ultimately decide the next Secretary General are keeping silent regarding the specific candidates. It is because the moment their intention is revealed, all their bargaining chips will be exposed.

“The election process of the Secretary General is very different from that of other elections in that the five permanent members of the Security Council have the right to nominate the candidate,” said a source from the U.N. “As some argue for greater transparency in the coming election for Secretary General, there are many possible factors.”