There are 5 men vying for the office of the UN Secretary General…
From those 5, who will be the best for Pakistan and in for the world for that matter…
Kofi Annan will step down as UN Secretary General at the end of the year, and the race to succeed him is gathering pace.
Five people have already declared their candidacy, but it is possible that Mr Annan’s successor will not be among them. There is still time for others to throw their hats into the ring.
Traditionally, the UN Security Council recommends a candidate and the 192-member General Assembly approves the choice.
Below are portraits of the five candidates.
BAN KI-MOON, SOUTH KOREA
South Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon has emerged as a front-runner in the race to succeed Kofi Annan.
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon has taken part in six-nation nuclear talks on North Korea
In an informal straw poll held in July among the 15 members of the UN Security Council, he came out top.
A career diplomat, Mr Ban, 62, has previously served at South Korea’s UN mission and its embassy in Washington. He has also been his country’s ambassador to Austria.
As South Korean foreign minister since January 2004, he has played a leading role in six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
According to the ministerial website, his “guiding vision has been that of a peaceful Korean peninsula, playing an expanding role for peace and prosperity in the region and the world”.
Having declared he would stand in February, Mr Ban has had seven months in which to garner support.
Announcing his candidacy, South Korea’s vice-foreign minister Yu Myung-hwan talked of Mr Ban’s “immaculate reputation” during nearly four decades as a diplomat and administrator.
“He has long been involved in issues of peace and security, development, democracy and human rights - the necessary qualifications to accomplish the UN’s ideals and goals,” Mr Yu said.
The government, while backing Mr Ban, has tried to keep its campaign low-key since early favourites have traditionally been overtaken in the later stages.
He may face criticism from some quarters over his country’s non-committal approach to North Korea’s human rights record, which has seen South Korea abstain in UN votes on the issue.
Mr Ban graduated from the Department of International Relations at Seoul University in 1970 and has a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University.
JAYANTHA DHANAPALA, SRI LANKA
Jayantha Dhanapala is a diplomat with almost 40 years experience, mainly in the international arena. He is currently an advisor to Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Jayantha Dhanapala speaking as undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs (file picture, 1998)
Jayantha Dhanapala: a UN insider but his age may count against him
Mr Dhanapala was one of the earliest candidates to express interest in the secretary-general’s post. At 67, he is already two years older than the official UN retirement age.
Considered a UN insider, Mr Dhanapala worked for 10 years in senior management at the world body.
In 1998, he was hand-picked by Mr Annan to serve as undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs, following reforms the previous year. He piloted UN attempts to stem the use of small arms and landmines.
He has said that coming from a small developing country means he has less “baggage” than candidates from bigger countries.
He also believes that “being neither a total insider nor an outsider”, he has “the blend of experience and understanding of the UN to implement reform”.
In a recent interview, Mr Dhanapala said that if he succeeded, organisational reform would top his agenda. He said that another priority would be achieving the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN. He said the world body derived its legitimacy from this and other core values.
“The European Commission not long ago had to go through sweeping reform. So do NGOs and other private bodies. We need not be defensive about reforms, but there has to be zero tolerance for unethical conduct,” he said in a recent interview with the Singapore-based Straits Times.
Me Dhanapala, a Mandarin speaker, entered the Sri Lankan foreign service in 1965.
He served as his country’s ambassador to Washington from 1995 to 1997, and also has held diplomatic postings in London, Delhi and Beijing. He has long experience working with the Non-Aligned Movement.
He left the United Nations in 2003 and served as the secretary-general of Sri Lanka’s “peace secretariat”, the department responsible for negotiating with the Tamil Tigers.
He finished fourth in the Security Council’s straw poll in July.
PRINCE ZEID AL-HUSSEIN, JORDAN
Prince Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan’s UN ambassador, is a widely respected diplomat. If chosen to succeed Kofi Annan, the 42-year-old former UN peacekeeper and cousin of King Abdullah II would be the first Muslim to head the world body.
Prince Zeid al-Hussein (file picture, 2001)
Prince Zeid al-Hussein helped set up the International Criminal Court
He was recently quoted by the Associated Press as saying that there was “considerable scope to be given by the Security Council and the General Assembly to a Muslim who was familiar with the UN but not of the UN”.
There is an understanding that the next secretary general should come from Asia, as part of a tradition to rotate the job between regions.
Although technically Jordan is part of the Asian group at the UN, some countries might consider it more Middle East than Asia when it comes to choosing Mr Annan’s successor.
Educated at Cambridge in the UK and in the US, Prince Zeid is an expert in the field of international justice.
He played a key role in setting up the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.
He has also spent more than a decade focusing on peacekeeping issues at the UN. Between 1994 and 1996, he was political affairs officer at the peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia.
In 1997, he was the first diplomat publicly to demand a UN report on the 1995 massacre of thousands of Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. This eventually culminated in a report by Kofi Annan on the failures to protect civilians.
In mid-2004, he was named by Mr Annan to oversee an inquiry into allegations of abuse and sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers in missions from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo.
His report outlining a strategy to combat such abuse, was endorsed by world leaders at the 2005 UN Millennium Summit.
SURAKIART SATHIRATHAI, THAILAND
Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai has the official backing of all 10 nations in Asia’s regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand’s deputy prime minister
Surakiart Sathirathai is an expert in international law
Aged 48, he has already notched up terms as foreign minister and his country’s youngest ever finance minister.
The first Thai to earn a doctorate in law from Harvard University, he served as dean of the law faculty at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok for several years, specialising in international law and development.
He also has private sector experience as chairman of a commercial bank and has overseen the privatisation of major Thai enterprises.
Dr Surakiart has said he is ready to take difficult decisions on reform and believes in multilateralism.
However, some observers believe he may have started his campaign for the UN’s top job too early.
He came third of four declared candidates in an informal straw poll conducted in July by the 15 members of the UN Security Council.
Critics have suggested that support from Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra may not count in his favour.
A Hong Kong-based human rights group, the Asian Human Rights Commission, criticised Dr Surakiart last month for his failure to influence Burma’s military regime while foreign minister.
SHASHI THAROOR, INDIA
India’s Shashi Tharoor is a career UN diplomat, having worked in the world body for nearly three decades.
Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor is a prize-winning author as well as UN diplomat
The 50-year-old under secretary-general for communications and public information in the UN is said to be eloquent and excellent at public diplomacy.
In the July straw polls, held at the Security Council, Mr Tharoor, who is close to Kofi Annan, polled the second highest.
Born in London and educated in India and the US, he worked first with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and then oversaw peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia.
In recent interview with the BBC, Mr Tharoor said he believed passionately in the UN and saw it “as a force that can make a real difference in the world”.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington in early September, he said that if he were elected, he would focus speeding up the deployment of UN peacekeepers to conflict areas as part of UN reforms.
“One manifest problem is speed of deployment,” he said. “We simply don’t get our soldiers (into conflict areas) quickly enough.”
He has also said that poverty eradication, children’s education, mainly for girls, and healthcare were some pressing issues that needed urgent attention, especially in Africa which is prone to natural disasters and diseases
He says that if chosen, he would also seek to heal divisions between wealthy and developing countries over reform of the world organisation.
But some commentators have said that Mr Tharoor’s experience may count against him. Some say that a senior insider may not be the person to deliver the radical reforms that they believe the organisation needs.
Mr Tharoor is also a prize-winning author. His political satire The Great Indian Novel focuses on India’s struggle for independence.