Eight Candidates Compete for Next UN Secretary-General

Eight candidates are competing for the UN Security Council's recommendation to become the next United Nations secretary-general, and the Council is holding a series of straw polls to narrow the field. The selection must be completed by December 31, when the current secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, must step down. Al Jazeera

Among the eight are Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, who heads the UN Conference on Trade and Development; Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; and Lana Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs.

The process runs through the 15-member Security Council. Under Article 97 of the UN Charter, the founding treaty of the organisation, the Council recommends a candidate to the General Assembly, which then gives its approval to finalise the selection.

The Council has five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which each hold a veto, meaning any one of them can block a decision. The other ten seats are held by elected members serving fixed terms. The current elected members are Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia.

The straw polls are informal and anonymous. Members indicate whether they "encourage", "discourage" or "have no opinion" about a candidate, and the results are not formal decisions. In later rounds, coloured paper ballots are used to tell the permanent members apart from the elected ones.

Once a candidate has at least nine "encourage" votes and no vetoes in a straw poll, the Council holds a formal vote to recommend that person to the General Assembly. A formal recommendation requires nine votes and no veto from the permanent members.

The General Assembly, where all member states sit, has never voted down a candidate the Council recommended. The one exception cited came in 1950, when it extended the then secretary-general's term without a Council recommendation after a deadlock. Al Jazeera