First straw poll for new UN Secretary General
The problem of being on a plane or rather five planes for two days is that you miss a lot of things. Ted Cruz and his speech at the Republican Convention and the first straw poll for the next UN Secretary General
As my readers know I have and am a strong supporter that the next UN Secretary General should be a woman and I also support regional rotation.
We have to remember that this is decided by the 15 members of the UN Security Council who may work by different criteria than the rest of us. There is no veto in this round by the Permanent Members of the Security Council - the P5 - all the papers of the same color and ask Member states to put their mark against three options encourage, dis-encourage and no opinion.
Was I surprised that Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres (12 encourage, 0 dis-encourage and 3 no opinion) top the first poll and is now considered by the media as the front runner to be the next United Nations secretary-general, perhaps not.
I hadn't given him a high mark at the hustings the other night because I thought being from a Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) country and not a woman he wouldn't be there at the end. I stand by that analysis - though i do think he has the skills, experience and character to do the job.
It seems the second in the straw poll was former Slovenian President Danilo Turk (11-2-2).
Third is the person i think is the real favourite from Eastern Europe and that is Irina Bokova (9-4-2) of Bulgaria, director-general of U.N. cultural organisation UNESCO.
Forth was former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic ( 9-5-1) and former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim (9-5-1).
This does seem like a pro man poll at the moment which is a little worrying.
In sixth was Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark (8-5-2), who heads the U.N. Development Programme who i expect will also suffer from being a WEOG candidate ultimately in the last round. Seventh Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak (7-3-5), and then Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra (7-4-4).
In ninth and in my view the winner of the hustings last week but probably there because she entered the race only on the 7th of July was former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres (5-5-5) of Costa Rica. I would expect her to rise in the next poll as she has the chance to visit Member states and for Member states to have more time to take her into the calculations that they will do for the next vote.
I would not be surprised if the remaining candidates drop out these being Moldova's former foreign minister, Natalia Gherman (10th) (4-4-7), was in 10th place, followed by Montenegro Foreign Minister Igor Luksic (11th) (3-7-5) and former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic.(12th) (2-11-2).
UN Security Council expected to meet again, possibly as early as next week, for 2nd round of straw polls.
As my readers know I have and am a strong supporter that the next UN Secretary General should be a woman and I also support regional rotation.
We have to remember that this is decided by the 15 members of the UN Security Council who may work by different criteria than the rest of us. There is no veto in this round by the Permanent Members of the Security Council - the P5 - all the papers of the same color and ask Member states to put their mark against three options encourage, dis-encourage and no opinion.
Was I surprised that Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres (12 encourage, 0 dis-encourage and 3 no opinion) top the first poll and is now considered by the media as the front runner to be the next United Nations secretary-general, perhaps not.
I hadn't given him a high mark at the hustings the other night because I thought being from a Western Europe and Other Group (WEOG) country and not a woman he wouldn't be there at the end. I stand by that analysis - though i do think he has the skills, experience and character to do the job.
It seems the second in the straw poll was former Slovenian President Danilo Turk (11-2-2).
Third is the person i think is the real favourite from Eastern Europe and that is Irina Bokova (9-4-2) of Bulgaria, director-general of U.N. cultural organisation UNESCO.
Forth was former Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic ( 9-5-1) and former Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim (9-5-1).
This does seem like a pro man poll at the moment which is a little worrying.
In sixth was Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark (8-5-2), who heads the U.N. Development Programme who i expect will also suffer from being a WEOG candidate ultimately in the last round. Seventh Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak (7-3-5), and then Argentinian Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra (7-4-4).
In ninth and in my view the winner of the hustings last week but probably there because she entered the race only on the 7th of July was former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres (5-5-5) of Costa Rica. I would expect her to rise in the next poll as she has the chance to visit Member states and for Member states to have more time to take her into the calculations that they will do for the next vote.
I would not be surprised if the remaining candidates drop out these being Moldova's former foreign minister, Natalia Gherman (10th) (4-4-7), was in 10th place, followed by Montenegro Foreign Minister Igor Luksic (11th) (3-7-5) and former Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic.(12th) (2-11-2).
UN Security Council expected to meet again, possibly as early as next week, for 2nd round of straw polls.
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Good stuff Felix. Many thanks. -- Angus
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