With one
year left in Kofi Annan’s term as secretary-general, nearly everyone
here is talking about who will succeed him. Except for the candidates.
In the protocol-laden world of the United Nations, to promote oneself
as a contender for the world’s top diplomat is considered most undiplomatic.
Candidates
typically are nominated by their heads of state or a regional group,
or have someone else put their name forward, To campaign publicly tends
to lessen one’s chances of being selected by the Security Council,
so until they have been formally presented as a candidate, most nominees
deny they want the job. That puts some of the quieter contenders in
a can’t-win position. One diplomat whose name has been floated said
the more he denied he was in the running, the more convinced people
were that he was.
“It
is hardly a process at all. It is more like a lottery,” said Brian Urquhart, a former undersecretary-general who has served or advised
every secretary-general since the organisation birth in 1945. One of
the earliest UN chiefs, Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold, didn’t
even know he was being discussed as a candidate when he was notified
that he had been selected to be secretary-general on April 1, 1953.
“He thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” Urquhart said.
The first secretary-general, Norwegian diplomat Trygve Lie, didn’t
even want the job, aspiring instead to be the president of the General
Assembly. At that time, the secretary-general’s job was viewed as
more secretary than general, administering the organisation and its
staff. But Hammarskjold helped define the job in a way that has made
it a powerful perch in world affairs. The secretary-general, he said,
is the embodiment of the institution, representing all the nations.
The post does not have the weight of military or economic power, Hammarskjold
said, but it does have moral authority. He believed his job was to discreetly
prevent conflict before it ignited, and to push the world to embrace
interdependence.
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The
ideal candidate to succeed Kofi Annan
as UN secretary-general should be diplomatic
and self-confident. Just
don‘t advertise the fact |
Annan
aspired to that ideal. The soft-spoken UN career diplomat from Ghana
won the Nobel Peace Prize, was handed a second term as secretary-general,
and former US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke dubbed him “the rock
star of diplomacy.” But after the $64 billion Iraq oil-for-food scandal,
revelations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, and a struggle to reform
the organisation, the next person to hold the post may once again be
more secretary than general.
By traditional
geographic rotation, the next chief should come from Asia. But Britain
and the US have made it clear that merit should trump geography. “We’ve
said that we want the best-qualified person from whatever region of
the world that person might come from,” US Ambassador John R. Bolton-
said. “If it’s an Asian, that’s fine with us. If it’s not an
Asian, that’s fine with us too.” They also are pushing for the next
secretary-general to be chosen by mid-year.
What the
two countries think matters, because it is the five permanent members
of the Security Council- the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia
- that choose the successor in a closed-door vote. If the rest of the
15-member council agree, they recommend the candidate to the 191-member
General Assembly, which formalises the selection. US officials say that
it may be Asia’s turn but that they are still waiting to see a candidate
with the right qualifications.
That is
not a vote of confidence in the two candidates who have actually been
publicly nominated, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai
and Sri Lankan nonproliferation expert Jayantha Dhanapala. Latvian President
Vaira Vike-Freiberga also has been mentioned, but she would have to
overcome Russian objections.
Then there
are those who question why anybody would want the post, which the first
secretary-general described as “the most impossible job on this Earth.”
But Annan has a bit of advice for his successor. “They need thick
skin,” he said recently, moments before lashing out at a contentious
reporter. “And they need a sense of humour.”
Los Angeles Times
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WHO’S
NEXT? Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the United Nations |
Deccan Herald -
6.3.2006
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