United Nations, Sep 30 (IANS) UNCTAD head Rebecca Grynspan has built up on her lead in the informal poll of the Security Council members to assess the support levels for the candidates vying to succeed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to sources following the secret process.
Former Guyana Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birket, who had led in one of the polls, was holding on to her second position in the fourth poll of the seven candidates held on Tuesday.
The five permanent members with veto powers will have the final say.
France’s Permanent Representative Jerome Bonnafont, the Council president for this month, announced the poll had taken place, but said he could not give the results under the agreed procedure for the exercise.
However, the results leaked out and tabulations by 1 for 8 Billion (1f8B), a group campaigning for fair and open elections, and Pass Blue, a media site covering the UN, showed Grynspan of Costa Rica getting ten positive votes, three negative, and two neutral votes in the 15-member Council.
The tally was one more positive vote for her than in the last straw poll held two weeks ago.
All seven candidates lobbied during the high-level week of the General Assembly last week, where the sentiment was strong for a woman to head the UN, which has been led by men for its 80 years.
There hasn’t been a Latin American in the office for 35 years since Javier Pérez de Cuellar left in 1991, and many from the continent, including the Caribbean, say it is their turn.
That gives an edge to both Grynspan and Rodrigues-Birket.
The Council has only three months to select a candidate, and if it is deadlocked, it will have to figure out who will run the UN from January 1 till they can agree on a candidate.
Guterres has said he will not stick around even a day longer after his term ends at the stroke of midnight of the New Year.
Under the UN Charter, the Council selects a candidate for the post and forwards it to the General Assembly for approval.
It is more of a routine, and the Assembly has always approved the Council’s nominee.
It was not known if any permanent members gave Grynspan or Rodrigues-Birket a negative vote in the anonymous poll.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated at a news conference last week that Moscow did not find the candidates suitable and others could emerge.
Bonnafont said they did not use colour-coded ballots, which are done at an advanced stage in the straw polling to distinguish the permanent members’ votes.
In the actual poll, the Council members mark Encourage, Discourage, and No Opinion for each candidate, and these correspond to positive, negative, and neutral.
Rodrigues-Birkett held on to the eight positive, six negative and one neutral votes she had received in the third straw poll after having led in the second.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi, who is from Argentina, placed third.
He was followed by Olara Otunnu, a former UN under-secretary-general and Uganda’s foreign minister who has done a stint as the president of the Council.
Former Senegal President Macky Sall, who does not have the backing of his country, came next.
Maria Fernanda Espinosa, a former president of the General Assembly and Ecuador’s foreign minister, and Ivonne A-Baki, a former Ecuadorian ambassador to the US and France, finished in the last two spots.
–IANS
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