Challenging UN leadership
As the beleaguered world organization begins a year of politicking to find a new leader, Equality Now says its time for a woman to take on the job — a woman like Canada's Louise Arbour

By Olivia Ward
January 1, 2006
The Toronto Star
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As the first pale rays of this new year dawn, contenders are being lined up for a world-class race that will be run mainly behind closed doors. 
It is the race to replace Kofi Annan, the United Nations' secretary-general who will retire in 12 months. And the winner will symbolize the direction in which the battered organization is likely to head in the next half decade. 
With the names of diverse candidates — from Louise Arbour, Canada's UN high commissioner for human rights to Poland's outgoing President Aleksandr Kwasniewski — being touted in the corridors, observers say, the contest could be a fierce one. 
It will be all the more bitter because the past year has been one of the UN's most damaging, with political divisions deepening, reforms dragging and confidence in the 60-year-old world organization's leadership dipping to new lows. 
The hope is that a new leader will stop the bleeding — but few can agree on who has the right diplomatic stuff to do so. 
Everything at the UN is a mud fight, says James Paul, executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum. From the Millennium Summit to global climate change, every major decision is influenced by what the United States wants. If other countries don't agree, there's big trouble ahead. 
An early volley was fired by the women's rights group Equality Now, which has proposed a list of women with high international profiles who the group says should be considered for the UN's top job. 
Among them are Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court justice, and Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who gave up her Canadian citizenship to become president of Latvia. 
Arbour has declined to comment on the endorsement but told the Inter Press Service News Agency that she favours the campaign, which signals the possibility of a more equal world. 
Working against her is the fact she has alienated Washington with outspoken remarks on the downgrading of rules against torture, sparking a rebuke from Washington's controversial ambassador, John Bolton. 
Bolton's remarks brought a brisk defence from Secretary-General Annan, who said he had absolutely no disagreement with the statement she made as the UN's human rights chief. 
I can't imagine anybody I'd rather have as secretary-general, says Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN. 
But there are countries that want a secretary rather than a general, and so she has no chance at the job. 
Vike-Freiberga, a former psychology professor at University of Montreal and surprise winner of the Latvian election, has better credentials in Washington. A refugee from a Communist state, she supports economic reform and ties with the West. 
Other candidates on the Equality Now list include Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned prime minister-elect of Burma, UN-Habitat executive director Anna Tibaijuka of Tanzania, and Thoraya Obaid of Saudi Arabia, executive director of the UN Population Fund. 
Officially, the secretary-general is appointed to a renewable five-year term by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council. But there is an unwritten rule against electing a leader who hails from one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. 
That eliminates the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, leaving some of the world's most powerful nations to fight their leadership battles by proxy, nominating foreign candidates that best represent their interests. 
Over the years, selecting the world's top international official has remained an unruly horse-trading process, in spite of reforms affecting other senior UN staff. 
I wouldn't call it an election, says Ayca Ariyoruk, a fellow at the New York-based Center for UN Reform Education. 
It's basically an appointment recommended by the Security Council to the General Assembly. There is one candidate handed to them, and they can only confirm or reject him. 
The centre is among non-governmental organizations calling for a radical change in the contest for secretary-general similar to the reforms that have been made in selecting the heads of UN agencies. 
Says Ariyoruk: There should be a job description and a search committee. It should be an open process, and the five permanent members should not be able to use their vetoes. 
But that formula would be unlikely to please Washington, which fears losing its upper hand in choosing a UN secretary-general. 
Former ambassador Heinbecker describes the current process bluntly. 
People in the Security Council signal who they want, and it goes to a straw vote by the five permanent members. They start blackballing each other's candidates. When they run out of people they hate, somebody gets the job. 
And, says James Paul of the Global Policy Forum, the contest is an unequal one. 
The five permanent members are known as the P5, but America is really P1. Ever since the (Ronald) Reagan administration, there have been threats of `do what we want or we'll ruin you.' 
The United States is the world body's biggest funder and has used the threat of withholding its $3.6 billion (U.S.) annual dues when it doesn't like the way things are going. 
Under President George W. Bush, America's relations with the UN have deteriorated more than ever. Abrasive ambassador Bolton recently described the organization as a competitor in the marketplace for global problem-solving — a warning that his government finds the UN dispensable. 
Washington's choice so far appears to be Polish President Kwasniewski, a former far-left politician who spearheaded NATO expansion and became a firm U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. 
Kwasniewski has expressed interest in the job, saying he would take a pro-active role. 
Many nations in Asia, which have not had a voice at the top since the late Burmese secretary-general U Thant retired in 1971, have been expecting that their turn is finally coming. 
But the continent is mired in a swamp of political rivalries that make lobbying for a single candidate difficult, if not unlikely. 
Japan has great economic clout in the region, and could field a candidate. 
But Beijing would never back its old enemy for the lofty UN post, just as Japan would likely oppose any Chinese candidate. 
ASEAN — Southeast Asia's regional association — favours Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, a Harvard law graduate and former oil executive. 
But his failure to speak out against the brutal military regime in neighbouring Burma has been criticized by pro-democratic Asians. 
Other Asian might-runs include Jayantha Dhanapala, a Sri Lankan peace negotiator and veteran UN disarmament expert, and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon. 
Dhanapala, who is known to be interested in the job, has some American support but little backing from ASEAN. 
Ki-Moon has all but guaranteed Japan's opposition by lashing out at Japanese leaders' continued visits to the Yasukuni shrine, which celebrates war dead including 14 condemned war criminals. 
Meanwhile, former Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong, reportedly a dark-horse candidate, appears to have neither opposition nor a vocal cheering section. But his reputation as an economic reformer is attractive to Western countries and the free-market enthusiasm of prosperous Singapore wins points with the United States. 
While diplomats wrangle over regional issues, New York-based Equality Now continues to lobby for a more inclusive approach to electing the UN leader with its18 well-qualified women. 
The slate is symbolic and representative of hundreds more women who could be considered for the top post, says Taina Bien-Aimé, the group's executive director. 
There are many women who are as qualified as men for the job of secretary-general. It's an absolute disgrace that the premier international organization, which has a very special interest in gender equality, has so far refused to consider women for its top post. 
Only 16 per cent of the UN's top posts have gone to women, Bien-Aimé points out. 
We know that it's a highly political institution with lots of different interests, including regional ones. But women make up half the population, and in 60 years, their time has never come. 
It's time for the UN to start looking at the other half of the sky.