Having studied media coverage of the
selection of the next Secretary-General in my last post, and found it to be
woefully lacking, I will now attempt rectify that problem by studying the
contest itself, and taking a more detailed look at some of the more serious
candidates for what Trygve Lie called the most impossible job on earth.
Let’s start with background into how
the SG is actually chosen. The hard and fast rules for the process are pretty
minimalist. To be qualified to run, a candidate must be proficient in both
English and French, and must be “a man of eminent accomplishments.” (This
formulation was adopted in the late 1940’s, so don’t read too much into the
unnecessarily gendered choice of words.) In order to run a candidate must also
secure the nomination of their national government. The actual election is done
first by the Security Council, who must adopt a resolution recommending one of
the candidates to the Generally Assembly, who then approve or reject the
Council’s recommendation by majority vote. In practice, this means that most
the power the chose the SG lies with the permanent members of the Security
Council. That’s not to say the rest of world has no say in matter. Both Boutros
Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan were selected largely because the Non-Aligned
Movement insisted on an African SG. Though to exert its influence, the General
Assembly needs to be well organized, and there’s no indication that this has
happened this time around.
In addition to the official rules,
there are a number of unofficial rules that govern who can and cannot hold the
position. For starters the SG must not come from a P5 nation and should
probably not come from another major power either. Second, there is the
geographic rotation based on the regional groups. Of the five groups, Africa,
Asia, and Latin America have produced two Secretaries-General each. The Western
European and Others Group has produced three (four if you count Gladwyn Jebb.) The
Eastern Europe Group (EEG) has produced none, so by rights that’s where the
next SG should be from. That being said, it may prove difficult in the current
political climate, especially with what’s happening in the Ukraine, for the P5
to agree on an Eastern European. Finally, there’s the fact that SG is usually
promoted from within. With the exceptions of Trygve Lie, the first
Secretary-General, and Ban Ki-moon, all previous SG’s had significant
experience working at the UN before taking office. (Quick aside: Ban Ki-moon
did in fact briefly serve as Chief of Staff to the President of the General Assembly,
but as UN-positions go, this is a relatively minor one and probably didn’t
count for much in Ban’s election.)
So now on to the candidates
themselves. At present four candidates have been formally nominated by their
governments, and few more have publically expressed an interest in running. Of
the four official candidates, I think Danilo Türk has best chances of actually getting the job.
There are two main reasons for this. First, he is far less entangled in his
country’s domestic politics than most of the others. This is an odd thing to
say considering he served as President of Slovenia from 2007 to 2012. However,
Slovenia is a parliamentary republic so the presidency is a largely ceremonial
role. He also stood for election as an independent, meaning he doesn’t have
party ties to the Slovenian government. The other reason is that he already has
a proven track record of managing the UN’s internal politics. Under Kofi Annan,
he served as Under-Secretary-General for political affairs from 2000 to 2005.
Now it’s long enough ago that I don’t know how successful he was in that
position, but just being appointed to the post says a lot about him. Türk’s personal politics
are hard to pin down, which leads me to think he’s unlikely to be anyone’s
first choice, but in a hostile political climate he seems like a viable
compromise candidate.
The second candidate I’ll discuss, and first to
be officially nominated is Irina Bokova. She has been Director-General of
UNESCO since 2009, and before that she served in the European Parliament and in the
Bulgarian Cabinet Office. Bokova’s candidacy is interesting to me since she
appears to be an early favourite (if the press is to be believed) despite a few
things on her resumé that would make her somewhat unpalatable to Eastern Europe, and to
Russia in particular. What the press does make clear (and I do think they speak
plausibly in this regard) is that she is a likely first choice for the western
powers. She has been making all the right noises on the Islamic State, for
example, and despite presiding over the first UN agency to admit Palestine as a
member, she is sufficiently pro-Israel to garner American support.
What’s likely to cause problems for her is
that, in a way, she personifies Moscow’s waning influence in Europe. She began
her political career as a mid-level functionary in the Bulgarian Communist
Party in the late 19080’s, but rose prominence in the years following the end
of communism in Bulgaria, rising as high a foreign minister in the winter of
1996/97. During her time in the cabinet office, she spearheaded Bulgaria’s bid
for EU membership, or, as the New York Times put it shortly after her
confirmation in her current position, “she played an active role in Bulgaria’s political
transformation from Soviet satellite to European Union member.” That’s not to
say her relationship with Moscow is bad. Certainly, the Russian government
isn’t going to veto her candidacy out of hand, but so long as they think that
they get someone else, Bokova’s candidacy is unlikely to be successful.
Finally, what’s most telling to for me is how she got her current position. She
was never considered a front-runner to replace Koichiro Matsuura as head of
UNESCO, and was confirmed by a majority of only four votes. I have to wonder
how effective she’d be, if roughly half the UN membership didn’t want her in her
current position at some point.
Next is Vesna Pusic, the current Foreign
Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia. Her candidacy, I’ll admit is a
bit of mystery to me. For starters she has no prior UN experience whatsoever.
Prior to the selection of Ban Ki-moon, I’d have rejected her election as impossible
on that basis alone. On several occasions she has spoken about the “importance
of repairing relations with Russia”, making it clear she has much closer ties
to the west than to Moscow, so much of what I said about Irina Bokova applies
to Pusic as well. In the end her lack of experience and personal politics make
it unlikely she’ll be anyone’s first choice, but her comparatively high profile
in European politics and her relationship with Moscow make her implausible as a
compromise candidate as well.
The fourth official candidate is Srgjan Kerim,
a former Foreign Minister of Macedonia and President of the UN General Assembly
in its 2007/2008 session. I’ll be honest, I know next to nothing about Kerim, beyond his resumé,
so his chances are hard to evaluate, though two things immediately stand out. He
is the first candidate from outside the European Union, so EU politics are less
likely to colour his candidacy. Second, unlike Vuk Jeremic whom I’ll be
discussing later, he had the unanimous support of the EEG when he was elected
President of the General Assembly. Both of these things speak in his favour,
but at the end of the day, I have no idea where to place his chances.
Having just mentioned him, I’ll
continue with Vuk Jeremic, the first of the potential candidates who have not
been formally nominated. He served as Serbia’s foreign minister from 2007 to
2012, and as President of the General Assembly in its 2012/2013 session. Politically,
he is sort of in the opposite situation as Irina Bokova. He has very good
relations with Moscow, and is likely to be the Russian’s first choice, but the
western powers have their qualms about him. Despite this, I think Jeremic might
make a good compromise candidate. He has his supporters in the west; for
instance, the Spanish Foreign Minister called him “the best candidate for
Secretary-General”, though, as previously mentioned, he has his detractors as well, which
lead to a very divided election to the GA presidency. He has also been a proponent
of Serbia’s admission to the European Union, so there clearly is a willingness
to work constructively with western leaders. As is the case with Irina Bokova,
I think so long as the western powers think that they can get someone better,
they won’t accept Jeremic as SG, but I do think they can be persuaded to change
their minds.
On a personal note, Jeremic’s
candidacy is the only on I have a strong opinion on. I began paying closer
attention to the day-to-day workings of the United Nations during his
presidency of the General Assembly. As such, I’ve heard him speak on a number
of occasions and have been consistently impressed with what he had to say. Certainly,
his communication skills would be a vast improvement over those of Ban Ki-moon.
However, I do not think he should be elected because of Kosovo. The UN is still
nominally responsible for its administration, and as a former Serbian
government minister has a vested interest Kosovo’s final status. For example, getting
the ICJ to rule on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence was
Jeremic’s idea. Though the strategy backfired spectacularly, it shows that
there is a clear conflict of interest.
The final candidate I’ll address
here is Helen Clark. She is the current Administrator of the UN Development
Programme, and after Ban Ki-moon, probably to most visible UN high official
these days. Before that she served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999
to 2008. Clark seems like to most likely candidate should be P5 fail to agree
on an Eastern European, and so far as I know the only non-European to have
expressed an interest. Particularly of note here is that of all the candidates I’ve
discussed, she’s the only one to have visibly strong relations with Beijing,
having spearheaded the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, the first ever
free trade agreement China signed with a developed nation. 