DHAKA: Portugal’s former Prime Minister Antonio Guterres is poised to become the next UN secretary general, UN diplomats say.
Guterres, 67, was the “clear favourite”, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin announced on Wednesday, reports the BBC.
A formal vote will take place in the UN Security Council on Thursday to confirm the choice of nominee.
Guterres, who led the UN refugee agency for 10 years, will take over from Ban Ki-moon early next year.
The 15-member Security Council cast secret ballots for each of the 10 candidates on Wednesday and none were found to oppose Guterres.
They were asked to select from a choice of 'encourage', 'discourage' or 'no opinion' for each candidate, with the former Portuguese prime minister receiving 13 'encourage' votes and two 'no opinion' votes.
An engineer by trade, Guterres first entered into politics in 1976 in Portugal’s first democratic election after the “Carnation revolution” that ended five decades of dictatorship.
He quickly rose in the ranks, becoming leader of the Socialist party in 1992 and was elected prime minister in 1995.
As head of the UNHCR refugee agency from 2005 to 2015, Guterres led the agency through some of the world’s worst refugee crises, including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
During that time, he repeatedly appealed to Western states to do more to help refugees fleeing the conflicts.
Former Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva said earlier this year that Guterres had “left a legacy” at the refugee agency “that means today he is a respected voice and all the world listens to him”.
There was some disappointment among campaigners who had hoped for a first female secretary general, or a candidate from Eastern Europe - which has never held the position.
But the process was “remarkably” uncontroversial, said Samantha Power, the US representative to the UN.
The UK's Matthew Rycroft said Guterres “will take the United Nations to the next level in terms of leadership” and be “a moral authority at a time when the world is divided on issues.”
Of the 13 candidates this year, seven were women.
Bulgarian politician and UNESCO director general Irina Bokova; ex-prime minister of New Zealand and current UNDP head Helen Clark; Moldovan politician Natalia Gherman, who was deputy prime minister and minister of European integration from 2013-2016; Croatian politician Vesna Pusic, who served as a first deputy prime minister and minister of foreign and European affairs until January this year; and current European Commissioner for budget and human resources Kristalina Georgieva.
In the end, the highest-placed woman, Irina Bokova, came fourth.
BDST: 0923 HRS, OCT 06, 2016
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