Tharoor hot favourite for UN top job 

Surya Gangadharan
April 10, 2006
CNN-IBN
Original Source: http://www.ibnlive.com/article.php?id=8037&section_id=2

New Delhi: This is one election nobody is even talking about. Official discussions will begin soon on a successor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – who will step down at the end of his 10-year term in December.
There are three clear candidates in the fray, all of them Asians. This is Asia’s turn to nominate a candidate to the top post of the world body this time.
The contenders have been around at the UN for so long that nobody in the Security Council is talking much about any of them.
It's the Security Council which elects the Secretary-General. Official discussions on who will lead the United Nations for the next five years will begin in June and July.
Shashi Tharoor, one of the best-known faces of the UN, is also seen as a likely candidate for the top job.
After spending 28 years at the UN, the last few years as Undersecretary General, he is the classic UN insider.
When asked if he is a candidate for the post of Secretary-General, Tharoor was non-committal. Look I'm a professional. Leave it to the politicians to decide, he told CNN-IBN in an exclusive interview.
But then who really decides on how a Secretary-General gets elected? Is it American support?
The key question is whether the member states are convinced that the person whom they are putting forward as a candidate has the qualities needed to lead the organisation. What those qualities are vary from time to time, Tharoor said.
With so much at stake, Tharoor's diplomatic circumlocution is understandable. But the clouds could clear by October, by which time it will not be a surprise if Tharoor throws his hat into the ring.