The UN Security Council held its second secret straw poll on Friday in the race to succeed Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as eight candidates compete for the international organisation's top job.
The informal ballot was intended to gauge support for candidates before the 15-member council makes a formal recommendation to the General Assembly, which appoints the Secretary General under the UN Charter.
Security Council members marked each candidate as “encouraged”, “discouraged” or “no opinion expressed”. As in the first poll on July 30, ballots cast by the five veto-wielding permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – will be indistinguishable from those of the 10 elected members.
No official record has been kept, and the ballots were destroyed after the vote. Latvia and Russia were appointed as tellers on Thursday.
A diplomat told reporters after the non-binding voting by the 15 members that Guyana's Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett received eight “encourage” votes, the highest of the eight candidates, while Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan, the front-runner last month, and Argentina's Rafael Grossi each received seven.
The latest candidate to enter the race, Ecuador's Ivonne Baki, received zero “encourage” votes and eight “discourage” votes, according to a diplomat.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, told reporters on Thursday: “If there is a deadlock on any of the candidates we are seeing today, if nobody … flies, then I think that we may see other candidates as well.”
The field expanded to eight following Tonga's nomination on August 17 of Ecuadorian diplomat Ms Baki.
She joined Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, Olara Otunnu of Uganda and former Senegalese president Macky Sall, alongside Mr Grossi, Ms Grynspan and Ms Rodrigues-Birkett.
All eight candidates have participated in dialogues with both the General Assembly and Security Council.
A candidate needs at least nine votes from the Security Council to advance but must also avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members, whose competing interests can complicate the selection.
If a candidate clears both hurdles, the Security Council recommends that person to the General Assembly, where the full UN membership formally confirms the appointment.
The informal voting system has been part of the selection process since the 1980s, although some UN member states have criticised it for its secrecy and lack of transparency.
Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group, said the straw polls were “created to help reduce gridlock among the P5 [five permanent members] as they negotiate during the selection process”.
He said the polls also helped to show the opinions of the council's 10 elected members, whose backing is necessary for a candidate to secure the nine votes required to advance.
“The permanent members cannot recommend a SG [Secretary General] candidate to the General Assembly without some support from the E10,” Mr Forti told The National.
