Take me to your leader
September 28, 2006
The Economist
Original Source: http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7963252
BAN KI-MOON does not ruffle many feathers. South Korea’s foreign minister is the front-runner to be the UN’s eighth secretary-general, taking over when Kofi Annan bows out at the end of the year. He has succeeded, so far, largely by offending no one. In a recent speech at New York's Council on Foreign Relations he proclaimed himself a “harmoniser” and hit all the safest notes: terrorism is bad, women’s rights are good, UN reform is jolly important. His caution is paying off. He led the two informal polls already held by the 15 members of the Security Council. 
The third straw poll takes place on Thursday September 28th, and another will follow soon after. Some speculate that other entrants may yet change the shape of the race. There are three months before the new man is supposed to take over. Before then, the General Assembly will be given the final—official—vote to endorse him. With time running short, Mr Ban seems well-placed. 
The conventional wisdom is that a candidate who appeals both to China and to America is likely to win. But any of the five permanent members of the Security Council (France, Britain and Russia plus the other two) can issue a veto. In Thursday's poll, as in previous ones, members will merely express encouragement, discouragement, or give no opinion about each candidate. As the competition heats up, voting becomes more formal. At the next scheduled vote, on October 2nd, colour-coded ballots will be used: permanent members cast red ballot papers, the others use white ones. A candidate cannot win as long as a red no-vote is cast against him. The winner needs to get at least nine of the 15 votes.
Britain wanted to hold off on vetoes so as to give two new candidates, who did not go through earlier rounds of balloting, the chance to promote themselves. One newcomer is Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia’s president and the only woman in the race. But most countries think this is Asia’s turn to get the UN’s top job. Although America does not agree, China has hinted that it will veto any non-Asian.
The other newcomer is Ashraf Ghani, who gave something of a campaign speech on September 27th at the Asia Society in New York. The outspoken Mr Ghani was Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban finance minister and is an accomplished scholar. He says flatly that the UN’s management is “in crisis” and boasts that, having cleaned up Afghanistan’s wretched finances, he could handle UN reform. Such talk goes down well with Americans who want to see serious changes in the organisation’s behemoth-like bureaucracy. But Mr Ghani, careful to endear himself to undemocratic China, also praised Asian economic success stories of the past few decades, saying there is more than one path to development. 
The other entrants are a mixed bag. After Mr Ban in the early voting is India's Shashi Tharoor, a current undersecretary-general. But even he seems to concede that things are looking good for his rival. The others (a Jordanian prince; politicians from Sri Lanka and Thailand) have, so far, drawn relatively little attention.
Whoever gets the top job, the question of what he should do needs answering. America, for example, wants more of a “secretary” than a “general”: John Bolton, its gruff ambassador to the UN, recently used the official job description, “chief administrative officer”, three times in two sentences to reporters. America wants a manager and reformer rather than a prominent diplomat. Poor countries, on the other hand, want a strong advocate for aid, trade and (in some cases) intervention in war zones. India leads a group of countries not on the council saying that the General Assembly, which must approve the new secretary-general, may not rubber-stamp the council’s candidate as it has always done in the past.
Given such competing demands, and the behind-the-scenes question of how (and if) the Security Council itself might be reformed, any candidate could face serious objections from one or other crucial member state. So Mr Ban’s cautious, keep-mum strategy, might just be the smartest approach of all.