South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon will be the next United Nations Secretary General. Ban won the final informal straw poll with 14 votes, including support from all five Permanent Security Council members.
India's Shashi Tharoor came runner up again with ten 'encourage' votes, three 'discourage' votes and two no opinions. In the three negative votes, one was believed to be that of a permanent member, which would have amounted to a veto. Tharoor then gracefully conceded victory to Ban and sent him a congratulatory message. ''It is clear that he will be our next Secretary-General,'' he said in an e-mail to ToI. "It is a great honour and a huge responsibility to be Secretary-General, and I wish Mr Ban every success in that task," Tharoor wrote. "I entered the race because of my devotion to the United Nations, and for the same reason I will strongly support him as the next Secretary-General. The UN, and the world, has a stake in his success." |