Security Council agrees on ex-Portuguese PM as next UN chief

UNITED NATIONS — Portugal’s former prime minister Antonio Guterres won the Security Council’s unanimous backing Wednesday to become the next UN secretary-general, winning plaudits for his strong leadership but disappointing campaigners for a woman or East European to be the world’s top diplomat for the first time.

The veteran politician and diplomat, who served as the UN’s refugee chief until December, topped all six informal polls in the council after his performance in the first-ever question-and-answer sessions in the 193-member General Assembly, which received high marks from almost every diplomat.

Britain’s UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said the assembly hearings showed that Guterres “was an outstanding candidate… who will take the United Nations to the next level in terms of leadership” and will provide “a moral authority at a time when the world is divided on issues, above all like Syria.”

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, appeared before reporters surrounded by the 14 other council ambassadors after the sixth informal poll of the 10 remaining candidates was held behind closed doors saying: “You are witnessing, I think, a historic scene.”

Churkin then thanked all the candidates saying they displayed “a lot of wisdom, understanding and concern for the fate of the world” and announced: “We have a clear favorite, and his name is Antonio Guterres.”

He said the Security Council would hold a formal vote on Thursday morning and expressed hope that the council will recommend Guterres by “acclamation” to the 193-member General Assembly, which must approve a successor to Ban Ki-moon whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31.

By tradition, the job of secretary-general has rotated among regions. Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have all held the post. East European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a secretary-general and it was their turn. There has also never been a woman secretary-general and more than 50 nations and many others campaigned to elect the first female UN chief.

There was disappointment among East Europeans, who fielded many candidates in the race but never united behind one, and among supporters hoping for a woman. Seven of the 13 candidates who entered the race were women.

Antonia Kirkland, program manager for Equality Now, which has campaigned for a woman secretary-general since 1996, said: “While it is disappointing that a man has once again been proposed by the UN Security Council as secretary-general, we are at least hopeful that he will continue the feminist agenda.”

She said this should include “first of all, ensuring gender parity among his staff at the Secretariat, and also prioritizing violence and discrimination against women as a pivotal issue.”

Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, the UN official who played a key role in shaping last December’s historic agreement to fight climate change and one of three candidates who dropped out of the race, tweeted: “Bittersweet results #NextSG. Bitter: not a woman. Sweet: by far the best man in the race. Congrats Antonio Guterres! We are all with you.”

Guterres, who would succeed current general secretary Ban Ki-moon on January 1, served as Socialist prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002. He was president of the European Council from January to July 2000 and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees between June 2005 and December 2015.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on Wednesday welcomed Guterres’s likely nomination, saying Israel hoped and expected that the UN under his leadership would “act in the spirit of its founding principles as a fair body able to differentiate between good and evil” and would “end its obsession with Israel.”

“I hope that this change in leadership will bring an end to the organization’s hostility towards the Jewish state,” he added.

Danon called on the next general secretary to appoint a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism.

He also said he expected the UN to take responsibility for ensuring the return of the bodies of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who fell during the 2014 Gaza war and whose remains are being held by the Hamas terror group.