M A I N   N E W S

Tharoor loses race to S. Korean for UN job
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

Shashi Tharoor, India’s candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations, yesterday withdrew from the race after South Korea’s Foreign Minister virtually assured himself the post with a strong showing in the Security Council’s fourth straw election.

Ban Ki-moon won 14 “encourage” votes from the 15-member Security Council and one “no opinion”. He was the only one of the six candidates not to get a “discourage” vote. Mr Tharoor, who has consistently figured as the runner up to Mr Ban in all four straw poll, received 10 “encourage” votes, three “discourage” votes and two “no opinions”. One of the discouragements was from a permanent member of the Security Council, which would have amounted to a veto had the Indian candidate continued in the race.

Soon after the latest straw poll’s results were declared Mr Tharoor wrote a congratulatory note to Mr Ban. “It is clear that he will be our next Secretary-General,” said Mr Tharoor, who serves as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations.

“It is a great honour and a huge responsibility to be Secretary-General, and I wish Mr Ban every success in that task,” Mr Tharoor said, adding, “I entered the race because of my devotion to the United Nations, and for the same reason I will strongly support him as the next Secretary-General. The UN, and the world, has a stake in his success.”

The five permanent members of the Security Council — the UK, China, France, Russia and the USA — were given blue ballots in yesterday’s poll to indicate whether candidates would be blocked by a veto.

The Security Council is expected to hold a formal vote to pick Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s successor on October 9. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, agreed to delay the vote until next week so candidates could have the chance to drop out and new ones could join the fray. Mr Bolton, however, indicated no other candidates would join. “New candidates still have the option of coming forward, but we’ve been waiting for new candidates and I don’t know of any, there’s no speculation of any,” he said. “I’d be surprised if new candidates came forward.”

Besides Mr Ban and Mr Tharoor, the other candidates in the fray are — Ashraf Ghani, Chancellor of Kabul University; Surakiart Sathirathaim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand; Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia; and Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Mr Annan steps down on December 31, ending 10 years at the head of the United Nations.

In Monday’s poll Mrs Vike-Freiberga got five “encourage”, six “discourage”, including two from permanent members, and four “no opinion” votes; Mr Surakiart got four “encourage”, seven “discourage”, including two from permanent members and four “no opinion”; Mr Ghani got four “encourage” and 11 “discourage”, including three from permanent members; and Mr Zeid al-Hussein got two “encourage”, eight “discourage”, including one from a permanent member and five “no opinion” votes.

After the formal vote the 192-nation General Assembly must approve the Security Council’s recommendation. While the informal poll is non-binding and the results could change should another candidate enter the fray, Mr Ban is widely expected to succeed Mr Annan after his strong showing on Monday.

China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya expressed confidence that the Security Council would send Mr Ban’s name to the General Assembly. “It is quite clear that from today’s straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly”, he said at the United Nations headquarters in New York last evening.

Mr Ban’s campaign came under a cloud last month after the Times of London reported that South Korea had “pledged millions of dollars in aid and offered other incentives to members of the United Nations Security Council to secure its candidate as the next UN Secretary-General”. The paper added, “The inducements range from tens of millions of pounds of extra funding for African countries to lucrative trade agreements in Europe, and even the gift of a grand piano to Peru”.

Meanwhile, Mr Tharoor expressed his gratitude to the Indian Government for nominating him as its official candidate. “Though I have never been an official of the government, I consider it a great honour to have been the bearer of India’s nomination, as well as of the hopes and aspirations of so many well-wishers in India and around the world,” he said.

“I have been humbled by the support, good wishes and prayers that they have conveyed to me. Although I did not win the race, it is a matter of genuine pride to me that I was deemed worthy by so many people and won the votes of so many governments,” he added.

MEA reaction to Tharoor’s exit today 
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 3
The Ministry of External Affairs will come out with a detailed reaction tomorrow on Mr Shashi Tharoor’s exit from the race for the post of United Nations’ Secretary-General.

It will have to be seen if the MEA reaction addresses two important questions: whether Mr Tharoor’s participation in the race for the top UN job was essentially a wrong decision and whether the final outcome of this exercise has adversely impacted India’s campaign for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

Mr Tharoor today announced his withdrawal from the contest following his defeat in the fourth and final straw poll yesterday where one of the five permanent members of the Security Council vetoed against him.

The obvious suspicion is that the veto against Mr Tharoor could have been used by either the USA or China, in that order. However, analysts here believe it to be the handiwork of the USA.

China has rarely used veto in UN elections. Beijing has consistently held that it was in favour of an Asian candidate for the top UN job this time. Moreover, given the ultra sensitive nature of Sino-India relations and the fact that this relationship is currently on a take-off stage, it would be improbable for Beijing to oppose New Delhi with a veto. Though the voting is by secret ballot, the identity of a vetoing nation cannot remain under wraps for long.

On the other hand, the USA has a long history of using veto in Security Council elections for ensuring that its writ prevails.