home > by publication type > daily analysis > The Secretary-General Sweepstakes
Email
| Prepared by: |
|---|
Ban Ki-Moon is the likely successor to Kofi Annan. (UN/Eskinder Debebe)
Kofi Annan concludes ten years as UN secretary-general in December, a period during which he was both feted as Nobel laureate and vilified for his role in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. His experience should give pause to anyone looking to step into his well-worn shoes (CSMonitor). But competition for the top UN post has been lively this year, featuring seven formal candidates and unprecedented amounts of public campaigning (AP), according to UN watchers.
Following tradition, the UN Security Council this year has held a series of straw votes, in which Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, has emerged as the clear favorite. Ban was the overwhelming choice (LAT) in the last such vote on Monday. There will be a formal Council vote next week, followed by a UN General Assembly ballot. But there are signs the General Assembly won’t serve as the rubber stamp it has in previous such votes. For one, some rivals are complaining Ban exploited his position (WashPost) as Seoul’s top diplomat in securing trade deals with UN members, a charge he dismisses. And the scorn expressed by leaders in the developing world at the opening of this year’s General Assembly was addressed as much at the UN Security Council as at Washington. The debate, which is expected to culminate in October, will shed new light on a position that has usually derived more power from its bully pulpit than invested in it by the UN Charter.
It is understood the Bush administration supports Ban, in part, says the Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland, to smooth relations with a key Asian ally. Ban also comes closer than the other lead candidate, India’s Shashi Tharoor, to fulfilling Washington’s wishes for a skillful functionary, more a secretary than a general, according to the Economist. A paper from the conservative Heritage Foundation says the secretary-general is meant to be the UN’s chief administrative officer and not “a diplomat for all seasons.” A recent U.S. Task Force on the United Nations says it makes more sense for UN daily operations to be run by a chief operations officer, “directly assisting the secretary-general in carrying out sound management and oversight” but such a post is not yet in place. Annan himself has handed over such duties to his deputy secretary-general. Overall, he has had mixed success in pushing for sweeping reforms, especially in areas such as procurement, where endemic problems plagued the oversight of the oil-for-food program, causing great embarrassment to the secretary-general. Annan referred to 2004, when the scandal broke, as an “annus horribilis” that cast a long shadow over the United Nations.
Ban has so far sounded the right notes, stressing oversight and procurement reforms, greater accountability, and transparency in the organization. But one of his biggest challenges may come from a body with great sway over the UN Secretariat and which has so far resisted calls for reform—the UN Security Council. This Online Debate between CFR’s Lee Feinstein and the American Enterprise Institute’s Joshua Muravchik measures the Council’s effectiveness and legitimacy.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.