UN: The UN Security Council's five permanent members have unanimously backed the bid by South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-moon to become the next secretary general of the United Nations, making it likely he will be endorsed by the 15-nation council as the world's top diplomat.
The Korean diplomat secured 14 votes in favour of his candidacy, including all those of the council's five veto-wielding powers - the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain. Only one non-permanent council member, voting anonymously, expressed no opinion.
Key senior council members say it is all but certain that Mr Ban will become the eighth secretary general, replacing Kofi Annan of Ghana when he steps down at the end of December. The council decided on Monday to wait until October 9th to formally recommend Mr Ban's candidacy to the 192-member general assembly so his competitors could withdraw from the race. The general assembly has never rejected the council's nominee for the top UN job.
"It is quite clear from today's vote that minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate the security council will recommend" to the general assembly, China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, said.
If appointed, Mr Ban would take charge of an organisation with a budget of more than $5 billion a year and operations in almost every corner of the world, including a peacekeeping army of more than 70,000.
Mr Ban's selection would place a seasoned though cautious diplomat in the job of restoring public confidence in an organisation that has been buffeted by political divisions over the US-led war in Iraq, UN mismanagement of the oil-for-food programme and a series of sexual misconduct scandals in UN peacekeeping operations.
During his campaign, the Korean diplomat had pledged to play a role in smoothing differences between the developing world and the US and other Western powers, which have clashed over UN reform priorities.
He vowed to pursue some key objectives of the US, a close military and political ally of South Korea, saying reform of United Nations management and financial practices would be his "job number one". He also intends to play a more active role than his predecessor in trying to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons programme.
"We are very pleased with the outcome here, very pleased," John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said after the vote.
Mr Bolton said he could not "rule out the possibility" that a new candidate might enter the race to mount a final challenge to Mr Ban, but he added: "I don't think there's much doubt what the outcome is at this point."
Some of Mr Ban's rivals had privately complained that the South Korean government supported a costly political campaign, involving trade deals and increased pledges of aid for security council members, to secure Mr Ban's victory.
However, some of Mr Ban's competitors rallied behind him. Shashi Tharoor of India, who was placed second in Monday's ballot, conceded defeat after the vote, saying he had written to Mr Ban to congratulate him. "It is clear that he will be our next secretary general," Mr Tharoor said. "It is a great honour and a huge responsibility to be secretary general and I wish Mr Ban every success in that task. The UN and the world has a stake in his success."
The emergence of Mr Ban as the likely new UN leader ended a rare public campaign for a post that has been traditionally selected in secrecy by the world's big powers. But the campaign followed past practices of limiting the field of viable candidates to a single region, in this case Asia.
Although one candidate came from outside the region, Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, China made it clear it would block any non-Asian candidate.
China's UN ambassador said his government was confident in Mr Ban. "I think that he is experienced. He's low-key but very firm and he's decisive," Mr Wang said.