Shashi Tharoor For UN Secretary General

09-29-2006, 03:03 AM

QUOTEUN Top Job
US 'quickness' may sideline Tharoor
Reuters
Posted online: Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 1015 hours IST
Updated: Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 1353 hours IST

United Nations, September 28: US Ambassador John Bolton pushed on Wednesday for a quick resolution to the race to succeed Kofi Annan as UN secretary-general, a move that could favour a South Korean front-runner.

UN Security Council members conduct another informal vote on Thursday among seven declared candidates, which could show whether South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon retains the lead he held in two previous straw polls.
"We are at the point where we should make a decision," Bolton told reporters, adding a new secretary-general, who would take office on Jan 1, needed a transition period. 

In a sign of possible Bush administration support for Ban, Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill defended the South Korean as a "very very consummate professional," after a congressman faulted the UN candidate for being too pro-China.

Hill, chief US negotiator with North Korea, told a US House of Representatives committee hearing he had worked closely with Ban and considered him not pro-China, but pro-South Korea.
"He's a very professional diplomat. He has a great deal of experience serving in the United States," Hill said.

At issue among Security Council members is whether to use coloured ballots to distinguish votes between veto-bearing members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - and the other 10 elected nations, who serve for two years.

Council members agreed that Thursday's straw poll would be without coloured ballots but another informal poll on Monday would distinguish between the permanent veto-holding members and the other 10, said a spokesman for Greece's Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, this month's council president late on Wednesday.

The decision was a compromise after Britain had argued for a straw poll without veto rights, because two candidates - Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the only woman in the race, and former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani - had entered late and should have the chance for a straw poll.
Britain, diplomats said, is known to want to keep the race open for any other candidate who might want to run whereas coloured ballots, in practice, could end the contest.

But Bolton said he believed "plenty of time has elapsed for us to go to the differentiated ballot.

Behind Ban in the previous poll was Shashi Tharoor of India, a novelist and the UN undersecretary-general for public information, followed by Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister; Jordan's U.N. Ambassador Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein; and Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, a former U.N. undersecretary-general for disarmament.

Tharoor said Thursday's vote could consolidate Ban's lead.
"I was second in both the two straw polls because I do believe that many ambassadors and many governments are looking for a real choice," said Tharoor. "But I acknowledge, as a realist that if Mr Ban ban consolidates his lead on Thursday, it could be all over."

The Security Council selects the new Secretary-General, who then has to be confirmed by the 192-member General Assembly. UN tradition deems that the next UN leader come from Asia.
The job as the world's top diplomat has changed over the years, but Bolton said the first priority was to be the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and institute management reforms.

Even Ban has some qualms about that. He told the Asia Society on Monday that many of the administrative operations would be left to a deputy. 

Good riddens. <!--emo& Big Grin

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09-29-2006, 03:05 AM

QUOTEUN top job frontrunner gets greedy for votes
Associated Press
Posted online: Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 1237 hours IST
Updated: Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 1441 hours IST

United Nations, September 28: The South Korean frontrunner to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General said he hopes to get support from all 15 Security Council nations in Thursday's informal poll, adding that he has received "very positive, encouraging support from many countries."

Ban Ki-Moon, who has been South Korea's Foreign Minister for over 2 1/2 years, said he was encouraged by the results of the recent straw polls and was continuing to campaign "so that I'll be able to get the fullest unanimous support from the member states."

In the last straw poll, where council members chose among three choices - "encourage," "discourage" or "no opinion" - Ban came out on top.
Fourteen countries encouraged him to remain in the race, and one discouraged him.

"I regard it as confirmation of widespread confidence in me and in the visions that I laid out for the future of the United Nations, including the United Nations' reform process," Ban said in an interview on Wednesday.
"I accept this result with humility. At the same time, I feel a deep sense of responsibility."

"I hope that I'll be able to maintain the level of support or increase the level of support to the fullest possible consensus for tomorrow's straw poll," he said.
Seven candidates will be vying for the council's support in Thursday's straw poll, two for the first time - former Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

In the last straw poll, India's candidate, UN Under Secretary General for Public Information Shashi Tharoor, came second followed by Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, Jordan's UN Ambassador Prince Zeid al Hussein, and former UN Disarmament Chief Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka.
Under the UN Charter, the Security Council recommends a candidate to the 192-member UN General Assembly, which has traditionally approved that person with little debate.

Most nations now generally accept that the next Secretary General should come from Asia because of a tradition that the post-rotate by region.
Most council members remained mum about the support but a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "Of the seven, we would lean toward Ban."

Thursday's poll will be followed by a more telling poll on Monday. At that time, council ambassadors will feature coloured ballots to indicate whether a candidate is opposed or supported by one of the five veto-wielding members of the council.
A negative vote from one of the five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - would all but doom the candidate's chances.
Asked why he was the frontrunner, Ban cited his almost four decades as a diplomat "dealing with many complex, difficult, security-related issues" including negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear program and with members of the General Assembly after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I can also offer the collective wisdom and experience of the Republic of Korea, which has risen from the devastation of war to the 11th-largest world economy, and also full-fledged democracy from authoritarian military rule."
South Korea has also undertaken sweeping reforms in the public and private sector, and Ban said he has taken the lead in reforming the Foreign Ministry, an experience that will be useful in the reforms the United Nations is undertaking.
Ban has said he would focus primarily on being the world's top diplomat and leave the UN's day-to-day operations primarily to a deputy, though he stressed, "I will be fully responsible."

To deal with the conventional and non-conventional challenges of the 21st century, he said, "the Secretary General should be a person who combines both capabilities as chief administrative officer and also as a political leader who can engage himself or herself in resolving many regional conflicts and global issues."
While Ban is certainly far ahead in the race, some diplomatic observers have expressed concern that he is not forceful enough, and that if elected he would be a weak Secretary General at a time that the United Nations needs a strong chief at the helm.

Ban said he had heard similar comments but he stressed that his jobs over the last 20 years, including foreign minister and national security adviser for two presidents, attest to his capabilities.

"The position of foreign minister of the Republic of Korea is a very challenging job," he said. Over the last three years, he said, he has played a coordinating role in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, dealing with the US, China, Russia, Japan and some European countries.

"This has not been an easy job," Ban said. "Sometimes I may look like a weak, soft leadership. You may look at me as a soft person, but I have inner strength. This is what normally people from the outside world would have some difficulty in seeing - people from Asia particularly, when we regard humility, a humbleness, as a very important virtue."

Ban said he has gained "a very good reputation" combining humility with "a strong commitment of responsibility for the public good."
"So I'm confident that I can be sometimes able to demonstrate strong leadership, but at the same time try to understand the challenges with a full sense of sympathy (for) the problems of others," he said.

"I try to care for other people first before myself. That's the way I have been living my entire life."

09-29-2006, 03:44 AM

South Korea's Ban keeps lead in U.N. leader race QUOTEThe 15 Security Council ambassadors voted among seven candidates vying for the job to replace U.N. Secretary-GeneralÂ Â Â Â Kofi Annan, who leaves office on December 31. The vote was unofficial but gives an indication of future results.

Council members marked ballots to "encourage, discourage or express no opinion" as in the previous two informal polls. Each member could vote for more than one candidate.

Ban got 13 encouragements, one discourage and one no opinion. In the last vote on September 13, he received 14 encouragements and one no opinion.

Tharoor dropped to eight encouragements on Thursday from 10 earlier this month, with three negatives and two no opinions. He was followed by Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the only non-Asian and woman in the race, who received seven encouragements, six discouragements and two no opinions.

Over for Tharoor.

09-29-2006, 11:12 PM

He has given a good fight.

09-29-2006, 11:28 PM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Sep 29 2006, 03:44 AM)Over for Tharoor.
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09-30-2006, 12:45 AM

I am happy, now there is no chance for him anymore.
We need a better candidate to represent UN. Time is not right to have an Indian as UN repsentative. Ofcourse not from a Nehruvian club.

09-30-2006, 06:30 AM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /> Whatever might be provocation but why to do Vibhishan to brother Indian?
However, here is the saving grace:
Ban scandal keeps Tharoor's bid alive
Chidanand Rajghatta
[ 30 Sep, 2006 0203hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates

WASHINGTON: India's and Shashi Tharoor's bid for the UN Secretary-General post, which was flickering to an end, might come alive following an unexpected report that the South Korean front-runner has used monetary clout to pull in support.

Tharoorâs run for the prestigious office, backed formally by New Delhi, failed to make headway in the third and final straw polls, where he again came runner-up to South Koreaâs foreign minister Ban Ki-moon, who had also won the first two polls.

In fact, Tharoor surprisingly lost ground in the third round, getting eight encouragements on Thursday, with three negatives and two no opinions from among the 15 Security Council members.

A candidate needs at least nine encouragements in the final cut. Ban too slipped a bit, getting 13 encouragements (down from 14 in the second poll), one discourage and one no opinion. But he was well ahead of six other contenders, including late entrant Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the only non-Asian and woman in the race, who came third with 7-6-2.

But Banâs bid could be headed for last-minute trouble, with The Times of London reporting that South Korea had spent large sums of money to win support for its foreign minister.

The Times said a month after announcing his candidature, South Korea said it would treble its aid budget to Africa to $100 million by 2008. Seoul then contributed tens of thousands of pounds to sponsor the African Union summit in the Gambia.

Ban declared 2006 to be the Year of Africa for South Korea. He also pledged $18 million for an educational programme in Tanzania, a country which has a UNSC seat.

It has since backed Ban. Though the race is technically not over, Tharoor had indicated that it might be hard to challenge Ban if he did not improve his showing in the third straw poll. Now that he has dropped to eight encouragements, he is now one short of the magic number.

"Not yet (over). We'll know only on Monday," Tharoor said in a e-mail to ToI, sent before The Times expose hit the wires.

A more decisive poll is set for Monday, when the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council will use different coloured ballots than the other 10 rotating SC members to indicate their preference. A veto from one of the five â Britain, China, France, Russia or the United States â will doom a candidateâs campaign.

Thatâs when candidates will decide if they should just drop out of the race. Those who remain then go for a formal vote in the UNSC next month, where a candidate will again need at least nine votes and no veto among the Permanent Five. The winner is then confirmed by the 192-member UN General Assembly.

agnivayu · (This post was last modified: 09-30-2006, 06:49 AM by agnivayu.)

Tharoor say's he is Hindu, but I wonder if he is a closet leftist anti-Hindu. I would rather have Hitler as Secretary-General rather than an Indian like Bobby Jindal. So, just because someone is Indian, it doesn't make them good. Also, the Secretary General position is usually given to smaller weak countries so that they feel good about themselves. I think people from Big countries are usually kept out, since they already carry a lot of weight.

10-03-2006, 09:52 AM

Shashi Tharoor withdraws from race] QUOTEÂ <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' />

India's Shashi Tharoor today withdrew from the race for the post of United Nations Secretary General after South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon emerged the winner of the fourth straw poll.

Announcing his withdrawal, Tharoor said the 62-year-old Ban was a clear winner and is going to be the next Secretary General succeeding Kofi Annan.

Tharoor, the UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information, got ten votes in favour while three casted negative votes in the 15-member security council. Two others said they have no opinion.

Among the three negative votes casted against him, one was from a permanent member, which would translate into a veto in a formal vote.

Tharoor said he sent a letter of congratulations to Ban on his success. He also thanked the Indian government for nominating him for the coveted post.

10-03-2006, 09:54 AM

QUOTETharoor say's he is Hindu, but I wonder if he is a closet leftist anti-Hindu. 
He is.
Towing Annan and waging tail around Arabs brought his fall. Lot of gossip about him.

10-03-2006, 12:05 PM

This guy is part of the "secular" platoon, and I don't think many nations want to deal with a lefitist Indian bureaucrat. This was also a slap to the liberal crowd and their chosen government. A government that refuses to protect its citizens deserves no respect.

10-03-2006, 07:59 PM

QUOTEThis guy is part of the "secular" platoon, and I don't think many nations want to deal with a lefitist Indian bureaucrat. This was also a slap to the liberal crowd and their chosen government. A government that refuses to protect its citizens deserves no respect. 
Agree with you. He was not only "commie + secular" but fully following every rule from their books.

**Hauma Hamiddha** · 10-03-2006, 08:20 PM

Indeed it is good that it is all over for ST. Having a secular at the helm of a body has already shown anti-India (Hindu -1971 war) tendencies is not a great idea. We cannot blindly go with ethnicity because we are bristling with drohis.

agnivayu · 10-03-2006, 11:17 PM

Good riddance then. It's not suprising then that the current Indian government nominated him.

I wonder who the permanent member was who voted against him. China is usually the one to abstain on something like this.

QUOTE(Mudy @ Oct 3 2006, 09:54 AM)
Towing Annan and waging tail around Arabs brought his fall. Lot of gossip about him.
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10-03-2006, 11:19 PM

QUOTEI wonder who the permanent member was who voted against him. China is usually the one to abstain on something like this.
My guess - USA. <!--emo& Big Grin

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ST was Annan guy and did pretty good job covering or working with Annan, his buddies and family for last 8 years and created mess called "UN corruption".

ramana · 10-03-2006, 11:24 PM

I thought so too. My reasons were Tharoor is not the type that US want so have as UNSG. The abstainer might be China. While the DDM can spin stories of how PRC black-balled poor old ST.

10-03-2006, 11:48 PM

Anan failure during Iraq voting and same time he started preaching US,
Why sudden change?
Anan's close circle involvement in corruption and
ST influence on Anan is everywhere.
ST is influenced by European leftist/socialist group.
Current Indian govt is still linked with European leftist and happily supported ST.

Appointment of new USA's UN representative should have given clear signal to everyone. <!--emo& Big Grin

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USA will try to cleanup UN ASAP.

10-03-2006, 11:49 PM

QUOTE Who played the spoiler to Tharoor's UN bid? 
Wednesday October 4 2006 00:00 IST
IANS
NEW DELHI: Shashi Tharoorâs exit from the race for the UN top job, after he lost the final informal straw poll Monday, has ââdisappointed, but not surprisedââ diplomats and UN-watchers here, and has sparked speculation as to which of the five permanent members could have voted against the Indian diplomat-author.

ââItâs not surprising. Nothing surprises me. We had a good campaign. One permanent member voted against Tharoor and that was the end of it,ââ Chinmaya R Gharekhan, Prime Ministerâs special envoy to West Asia and the countryâs former permanent representative to the UN, said.

ââWe will never come to know which permanent member voted against us,ââ said Gharekhan, who has penned an incisive study on the UN system entitled ââThe Horseshoe Table.ââ Tharoor, the UN Undersecretary General for public information and an acknowledged writer, withdrew after garnering 10 votes in favor, three against, one of which was a veto from a permanent member, and two ââno opinions.ââ

The 62-year-old Ban Ki-moon received 14 votes in favor and one ââno opinionââ and no veto from a permanent member. If he wins, he will succeed the incumbent Kofi Annan when the latterâs 10-year tenure expires on December 31.

In South Block, the news of Tharoorâs withdrawal from the race was received with ââdisappointment,ââ but officials tried to put a brave face on it and praised Tharoor, the youngest candidate at 50, for his can-do spirit and his exhaustive campaign to the worldâs leading capitals to muster support for his candidature.

ââHe put up a good show despite announcing the candidature late in the day. Nothing is certain in international politics and nobody can be taken for granted,ââ a senior official, who doesnât wish to be identified, said.

ââWhat it proves is that if you donât get the P-5 on the side, you donât win,ââ Lalit Mansingh, former Foreign Secretary said. Asked who could have cast the negative vote that signalled a sure exit for Tharoor from this high-stakes game, Mansingh said that it was hard to say as the balloting was secret.

A former diplomat, who does not wish to quoted, however, speculated that it was China that cast that exclusionary negative vote that clinched the fate of Tharoorâs candidature. ââThe Chinese would not want an Indian to run the UN. While our relations are improving, we must accept the fact that in the long term China and India are competitors,ââ he said. ââItâs possible that the US could have thrown its weight behind Bank Ki-moon,ââ he surmised. 

Mansingh sees a brighter side to Tharoorâs spirited campaign.

ââWhat came as a pleasant surprise was the strong showing Tharoor had till the last straw poll,ââ Mansingh said 

Mansingh should look for UN post.

10-04-2006, 12:16 AM

QUOTEShashi Tharoor's defeat was staring at Govt's face 
Pioneer.com
G Parthasarathy |
The Manmohan Singh Government seems to have become increasingly accident prone in recent days. Ill-considered actions inevitably lead to disastrous results. We have seen the brazen and arrogant Pakistani reaction to our concerns about the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed in the 7/11 Mumbai bomb blasts.Â

This was inevitable following ill-advised statements in Havana suggesting that Pakistan, like India, is a "victim of terrorism" and the decision to set up a joint mechanism to deal with terrorism. Coming close on the heels of this setback, is yet another major international rebuff for India, with its candidate for the post of UN Secretary General, Shashi Tharoor, being forced to acknowledge defeat and withdraw his candidature.

Tharoor found that he had consistently trailed behind his South Korean rival Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon in "straw polls" of the 15 UN Security Council members. He eventually had his candidature rejected and killed by opposition from a Permanent Member of the Security Council.

Professional diplomats in South Block with years of experience of the UN had, from the very outset, warned that Tharoor's candidature was doomed to failure. The candidature was announced with no prior consultations with our permanent mission to the UN and without consultations with even a single permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Moreover, past experience has shown that any candidate who does not enjoy the support of either the US or China will find that the US and China will make common cause behind the scenes, to have him defeated. It was quite evident following Manmohan Singh's visit to St Petersburg that even a traditional friend like Russia was unwilling to publicly support Tharoor's candidature.

When President Bush made it clear that he favoured a candidate from East Asia, it should have been evident that the Americans would not, in an ultimate analysis, back Tharoor. Tharoor would have been well advised to back off when he received only eight out of 15 positive votes in the third "straw poll". He instead chose to brazen it out and had to be forced out of the reckoning in the fourth poll when he faced a veto from a permanent member of the Security Council, with little doubt now that his candidature was killed by American opposition.

It could, of course, be argued that no great harm has been caused by this episode. This would be a serious error of judgement. It took us nearly a decade to recover from the trouncing we received by 142 votes to 40 when we challenged Japan for a seat to the UN Security Council in 1996.

Across the world, the word will go around that when push came to shove the Americans preferred to back a traditional ally, rather than a country they claim is a new found "strategic partner". And it will be noted that the Americans have had intensive backroom consultation with the Chinese on this issue, much to the embarrassment of India.

What is most regrettable about this setback is that it comes after a decade of patient diplomacy had resulted in a new international profile for India with its membership of the East Asia Summit, its participation as a partner with major industrial powers at G-8 Summits, the establishment of the South Africa, Brazil, India Strategic Triangle and its resounding success in obtaining support this year for election to the UN Human Rights Commission.

It is fashionable in the present dispensation for Government's cheer leaders in the media and elsewhere to ridicule the views of those with specialised experience in fields like diplomacy, national security or nuclear energy by labeling their views as being "outdated" and not in consonance with the "out-of-the-box" thinking that is supposed to lead to greater domestic and international glory for the country.

One hopes that the Tharoor debacle will lead to the Government carefully weighing the pros and cons of its actions, rather than rushing to embrace "out-of-the-box" initiatives in foreign policy-initiatives that can only embarrass the country.
NAM is and was a bad idea. If India sticks to old club, why they expect US will change.

10-04-2006, 07:52 AM

The policy misstep represented by Tharoorâs defeat should make PM ask some tough questions QUOTEIt always was a question of when and not whether Indiaâs official candidate for the post of UN Secretary General, Shashi Tharoor, would pull out of the race. The overwhelming support for South Koreaâs foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, in Mondayâs straw poll at the 15-member UNSC signalled the end of a campaign that should never have begun. Many had cautioned the government that there was no reason for it to get mixed up in this election. That Tharoor was an impressive âalso ranâ â he consistently came second in the four polls of the 15-member UNSC â is a measure of his good people skills. But that is poor consolation for Indiaâs foreign policy.

Why I Should Run the UN
Violating UN diplomatic practice, where major powers and especially nuclear weapon powers do not bid for the top bureaucratic slot in the world body, the PMO had allowed itself to be persuaded that India should back Shashi Tharoorâs candidature. The result unsurprisingly has been the first diplomatic misstep by the Manmohan Singh government. So while analysing Tharoorâs withdrawal from the UN race it is necessary to observe that despite a wary foreign office, some PMO strategists got Dr Singh to personally lobby with other leaders in multilateral forums for âIndiaâs candidateâ. The political writing on the UN security council wall had been clear for some time: once South Koreaâs nominee got China, Russia and France on his side, the US, UK and Japan had little choice but to back Ban. Opposing him would have pushed Seoul further away from Washington and into Beijingâs arms. Banâs success underlines

Beijingâs new clout at the UN.

One way to get something out of this avoidable faux pas would be for Dr Singh, who has proved to be quite a diplomatic paradigm shifter, to ask some tough questions on Indiaâs UN strategy. It may sound undiplomatic but is true nonetheless that over the decades, bureaucrats in search of global sinecures, pensioners with high self-esteem and ideologues of a particular persuasion have cohered into a multilateralist quasi-lobby group that has sometimes exercised a surprising amount of influence on New Delhiâs UN diplomacy. For many in the so-called establishment, multilateralism has become an end in itself, disconnected from governmentâs priorities or realpolitik exigencies. The Tharoor candidature enthused those who ask the question what India can do for multilateralism. The more important question is what multilateralism can do for India.

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