The UN Security Council was to hold its third straw poll on
Thursday among the seven declared candidates vying to succeed
Secretary-General Kofi Annan whose terms ends at the end of the
year.
The informal preliminary vote, scheduled to be held at 4 PM EDT
(20:00 GMT), will for the first time include Latvian President
Vaira Vike-Freiberga and former Afghan finance minister Ashraf
Ghani who had missed the previous two polls.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, a career diplomat,
topped either of the first two straw polls in which council members
chose among three choices for each candidate - "encourage,"
"discourage" and "no opinion."
In the last poll that ended on Sept. 14, Ban received 14 votes
of "encourage" and only one vote of "discourage."
Council members disagreed on Wednesday on whether to distinguish
the ballots of the permanent members and the nonpermanent members
by using different colors in Thursday's poll.
US Ambassador John Bolton pushed for a quick decision on the
selection process, saying it was time to use colored ballots.
"Our view is that there should be (different colors). I think we've
reached that time in the decision making process," Bolton told
reporters on Wednesday.
"It would be useful to know where the permanent members stand at
least anonymously but to know where they stand compared to the
nonpermanent members, since when we go to an actual vote, a no vote
by a permanent member amounts to a veto," he said.
UN diplomats said Britain insisted on holding another straw poll
without colored ballots to give the same chance to the Latvian
president and the former Afghan minister, who entered the race only
recently.
A compromise was reached after council members agreed to conduct
Thursday's straw poll without colored ballots but to use them in
another informal poll planned on Monday.
The other four declared candidates are UN Under
Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor of India, Thailand's Deputy Prime
Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, Jordan's UN Ambassador Prince Zeid
Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein and Jayantha Dhanapala, a Sri Lankan
presidential advisor and former UN undersecretary-general for
disarmament.
The UN Charter stipulates that the Security Council recommends a
candidate to the 192-member UN General Assembly for
confirmation.
Under an unwritten rule of regional rotation, it is generally
accepted among the members states that the next UN chief come from
Asia.
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2006)
