NEW YORK - There was a chance - albeit a very remote one bearing in mind the
stately progress of United Nations Security Council deliberations - that by
Monday evening New York time the council would be able to declare a new
secretary general. For the first time, however, the council was to conduct a
realistic straw poll, in which the veto-holders would have different-colored
ballots.
Even at this late stage, the only assured result is that Kofi Annan's successor
will be an Asian - even if there is some
uncertainty about which Asian it is. There is an increasing
likelihood that South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon will be the council's
choice, but it is far from certain.
Ban ended up leading the pack, but with fewer votes than he earned in the
previous straw vote on September 14. One delegate who once supported Ban has
now lost interest and in effect abstained, while another voted to "discourage"
his candidacy. But none of the other candidates could muster enough support to
match Ban's 13 "encouragements". And none of the fearless delegations would
actually admit to being one of the two nay-sayers.
But was that "discourage" vote a tactical offer to negotiate, or a flat-out
veto? Was the loss of interest an invitation to try harder? Some delegations
hinted darkly that the British and French were negotiating to overturn Annan's
recent decision that removed their previous duopoly over peacekeeping and
political affairs.
Or were delegates playing for time in the hope that former Thai deputy prime
minister Surakiart Sathirathai, battered by a coup at home and a poor
straw-vote showing, would pull out? Would that clear the way for another
candidate from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where
Singapore, always productive of potential candidates, has two or three in hand?
In previous years, the Security Council would solemnly consider even
self-nominations to the post. This time the council decided that countries had
to nominate candidates. In some ways, this is antithetical to a core principle
of the UN, since the secretary general is an international civil servant, above
country.
The overt national sponsorship has led to what is almost a caste hierarchy for
candidates, who have benefited from their governments' support for their
campaigns. Rivals are already scrutinizing recent deals among India, South
Korea and other voting powers for signs of undue influence reminiscent of a US
election.
And perhaps to everyone's relief, it spared them considering voting against
Aung San Suu Kyi of Myamnar, unlikely to get the generals' nomination and
unlikely to get past ASEAN consensus.
Surakiart, Thailand's candidate, handicapped by the coup, was kept in the
running by the military government's enthusiastic support for his campaign -
which of course may actually backfire with some delegations and certainly must
cause some chagrin to other ASEAN wanna-bes.
The second runner-up hitherto has been Shashi Tharoor, the Indian candidate
currently heading the UN's Department of Public Information - and incidentally
a prime mover behind Annan's original candidacy. He is clever and articulate -
which in this race may well work against him - and, most damning to some, a UN
insider.
But just as the sub-Saharans never really regarded former secretary general
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian, as a genuine African, the concept of a
secretary general from Asia was sorely tested by the candidacy of Prince Zeid
of Jordan. He did surprisingly badly in the straw poll, perhaps because of
fears of what the apocalyptic Christian right would make of a descendent of the
Prophet sitting in the world's most prominent seat. But his poor showing had
more to do with the fact that East Asians and South Asians don't really regard
Arabs as Asians.
Jayantha Dhanapala, Sri Lanka's veteran disarmament diplomat, did surprisingly
badly in the straw polls too, unless you consider that successful advocacy of
disarmament does not always sit well with a select group that includes the
world's leading arms merchants. Anyway, he took the hint and dropped out, just
as two new candidates popped up - whom the British, French, and thus presumably
behind the scenes the Americans seem to want to make space for. Ashraf Ghani,
finance minister of Afghanistan, is articulate and opinionated (good opinions
too!) to the extent of being Shashi Tharoor with a bonus calculator.
With Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, perhaps the only real question is
whether the Russians or the Chinese would veto her first, but while she has an
argument - gender balance suggests it is more imperative for a woman's "turn"
rather than an Asian's - enough delegations are committed to Asia to scupper
her chances.
The biggest objection to Ban Ki-moon, who allegedly has support from both China
and the United States, is his perceived lack of charisma and his emphasis on
harmony. US commentators seem to regard him as reliable, which means, from
their point of view, pliable.
However, hearing him speak, one is struck by the resemblances to Kofi Annan at
the start of his tenure. No one who only judged the public appearance of Annan
would have suspected the way he expanded to fill the office. Being soft-spoken
is not inconsistent with having firm principles.
As Ban evokes it in his stump speeches, being foreign minister of South Korea
requires serious tightrope-walking skills, among the US, China, Japan and the
North, but no one looking at Seoul's recent foreign-policy stances would see
him as an enthusiastic cat's paw for the US administration, while many
governments would prefer a pragmatic diplomat to a preachy secular pope.
However, that does not preclude, indeed rather requires, the moral stature
gained from having what the late British foreign secretary Robin Cook termed an
"ethical dimension" to the job.
For example, Ban expresses strong support for the International Criminal Court
and for the Responsibility to Protect - the doctrine of humanitarian
intervention adopted in principle at least year's World Summit. Neither China
nor the United States is totally ecstatic about either concept, but both are
perceptive enough to realize the slimness of the chances of any candidate who
opposes bedrock UN decisions.
In fact, the US would be hard put to find any candidate even remotely morally,
intellectually or politically acceptable to the rest of the world who would
accept Washington's views on multilateralism.
[BOX]
If this sounds like a papal election with a Medici candidate, it's really not.
In fact, this election campaign is possibly the most transparent in the UN's
history. But while the campaign itself is transparent, the election itself is
as murkily duplicitous as ever.
Every five or 10 years, the world is amazed at the opacity of the process for
choosing the UN secretary general. According to the UN Charter, the Security
Council, 15 members strong, recommends a candidate to the General Assembly,
which can technically reject the recommendation.
To complicate matters, after the anonymous straw polls, when the Security
Council publicly votes and comes to a formal adoption, a candidate could win
with only nine votes - or lose with 14 - if the one holdout is a permanent
member and votes against the front-runner. This is what happened in 1996, when
US ambassador Madeleine Albright vetoed Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
In the heady aftermath of the Cold War, impending secretary-general elections
have concentrated minds, bringing regular calls for making the process more
transparent and democratic. Each election has in effect ignored those calls,
and the world has immediately forgotten the fuss, heaving a sigh of relief once
the drawn-out process ends.
This time, with plenty of notice, there were calls for the Security Council to
nominate two or more candidates so the General Assembly could decide. Confident
that the assembly would not be able to get its act together and reject a
Security Council candidate, the council members tacitly ignored the idea.
There is no provision in the charter for the secretary generalship to rotate
around the regions of the world (indeed, the first two came from Scandinavia).
But there is now a consensus that geographic proportionality is important. The
United States and Britain both repudiate that principle but bow to its
application, not least since China has made it plain this time around that it
will veto any non-Asian candidate.
Beginning under Boutros-Ghali and accentuated under Annan, non-governmental
organizations have increased their importance and visibility inside the UN
system. This time, candidates have been approached with checklists for their
views, in particular on human-rights issues. They have been speaking about
their candidacies at venues ranging from the Asia Society to the International
Peace Academy, while touring the world talking to governments in support of
their case. The Center for UN Reform Education has actually interviewed most of
the candidates and put the results in the public domain.
It would be difficult for governments to support someone who was dismissive of
these tests, for fear of public reaction. On the other hand, candidates have to
behave like US presidential-primary contenders, signaling one way for the
masses while steering the other for the conservatives - or vice versa.
But with the process clearly trending toward blandness and compromise, it is
surprising that most of the successful candidates over the years have been as
good as they have been. For example, Trygve Lie, the first secretary general,
complained that Dag Hammarskjold, his Swedish successor, was a disastrously
boring civil servant. Hammarskjold grew to become the very model of a modern
secretary general.
There is something about the post, being the focus of so much concentrated
world attention and expectation, that does that to a man, and would perhaps
even to a woman if the council had been bold enough to appoint one.
Ian Williams is author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.
