Guterres wins

Stuff reports:

Helen Clark’s bid for the top job at the United Nations has finally been sunk, with the Security Council unanimously endorsing another candidate.

In the sixth straw poll for the UN secretary-general position, former Portugese prime minister Antonio Guterres was announced as the winner, with a formal endorsement “by acclamation” to take place on Friday (NZ time).

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin made the announcement to reporters surrounded by ambassadors from the 14 other council nations after they held their sixth informal poll of the 10 candidates behind closed doors.

Guterres received 13 “encourage” votes and two “no opinions” from the 15 members of the UN Security Council, giving him an unassailable lead.

Clark herself received six “encourage” votes, eight “discourages” and one “no opinion”, with three vetoes used against her by the Security Council’s five permanent members.

Guterres led every ballot. He is not Eastern European, so the tradition of regional rotation has now broken down which is good.

My guess for the three P5 members against Clark are US, France and Russia.

The final voting was:

1. Guterres 13-0
2. Jeremic 7-6 (3 P5 against)
3. Lajcak 7-6 (2 P5 against)
4. Bokova 7-7 (2 P5 against)
5. Clark 6-8 (3 P5 against)
6. Malcorra 5-7 (1 P5 against)
7. Turk 5-8 (4 P5 against)
8. Georgieva 5-8 (2 P5 against)
9. Kerim 5-9 (3 P5 against)
10. Gherman 3-11 (3 P5 against)

So Clark ended up with her best rating on the final ballot.

Guterres has yet to be formally nominated by the SC and then endorsed by the General Assembly, but that is a formality.