An election was held in 2006 to succeed Kofi Annan, whose second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations expired on 31 December 2006. Seven candidates were officially nominated for the position.
The United Nations Security Council conducted a series of unofficial straw polls between 24 July and 2 October. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon emerged as the front-runner, and the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members of the Security Council, each of whom has the power to veto candidates. Following the final straw poll, all the candidates withdrew except for Ban. The Security Council conducted a formal vote on 9 October, and forwarded its choice to the General Assembly, which elected Ban on 13 October.
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The United Nations Charter provides for the Secretary-General to be appointed by the General Assembly upon the nomination of the Security Council. Therefore, the selection is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
The Charter's minimal language has since been supplemented by other procedural rules and accepted practices. In practice, the Secretary-General cannot be a national of any of the permanent members of the Security Council. An accepted practice of regional rotation has also been adopted in the selection of successive candidates. The ability of candidates to converse in both English and French is also considered an unofficial qualification for the office.
When the race to succeed Annan began in 2006, it was widely expected the successful candidate would be Asian, since a number of Security Council members (including China, which has a veto) indicated they would only support an Asian candidate.[1]
Noting that all Secretaries-General to date have been men, Equality Now launched a campaign for the election of a female Secretary-General, and identified a ‘sampling’ of 18 qualified women, including Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Louise Arbour, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Tarja Halonen.[2] Equality Now also noted that there are many qualified Asian women, including Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma, Sadako Ogata from Japan, Nafis Sadik from Pakistan, Anson Chan from Hong Kong, and Leticia Shahani from the Philippines.[3] The idea of a female Secretary-General received some support (including from Kofi Annan[4] and US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton[5]), but no Asian women were nominated.
Seven candidates were officially nominated for the position:[6]
| Official candidates | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Position | Nominated by |
| Ban Ki-moon | South Korean Foreign Minister | South Korea |
| Shashi Tharoor | UN Under-Secretary-General for public information | India |
| Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga | President of Latvia | Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania |
| Surakiart Sathirathai | Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand | Thailand |
| Ashraf Ghani | Chancellor of Kabul University | Afghanistan |
| Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein | Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations | Jordan |
| Jayantha Dhanapala | Former Under-Secretary-General for disarmament | Sri Lanka |
A number of other potential candidates were mentioned by commentators but did not run, including Bill Clinton (former President of the United States), Jean Chrétien (former Prime Minister of Canada), Anwar Ibrahim (former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia), Goh Chok Tong (Senior Minister of the Republic of Singapore), Fidel Ramos (former President of the Philippines), José Ramos-Horta (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and then Prime Minister of East Timor), Aleksander Kwaśniewski (former President of Poland), and Tony Blair (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom).[6]
The Security Council conducted four straw polls, on 24 July,[7] 14 September,[8] 28 September,[9] and 2 October,[10] in which each of the 15 member states were asked whether they would ‘encourage’ or ‘discourage’ each of the official candidates (or if they had ‘no opinion’ on the candidate). Ban Ki-moon and Shashi Tharoor topped each of these polls. In the fourth poll, Ban emerged as the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members, each of whom has the power to veto candidates; Shashi Tharoor had received more overall 'encourage' votes in some previous straw polls but China indicated it would veto Tharoor, who is Indian. After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy[11] and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly".[12]
Zeid and Ghani withdrew from the race on 4 October.[13] They were followed on 5 October by Surakiart and Vīķe-Freiberga, leaving only Ban in the race.[14] The Security Council conducted a formal vote on 9 October, and forwarded its choice to the General Assembly, which then elected him on 13 October.[15]