SYG SELECTION: STRAW POLL IN JULY

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 001347 SIPDIS SIPDIS NOFORN E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/11/2011 TAGS: PREL UNSC UN SUBJECT: SYG SELECTION: STRAW POLL IN JULY REF: USUN 1119 (NOTAL) Classified By: Ambassador John R. Bolton, Permanent Representative, for reasons 1.4 b,d. ¶1. (C) Summary. The Security Council has agreed on the next stage of the Secretary-General selection process, including the modalities of the straw polls to begin in July and the means by which the Council will notify candidates of the results. Incoming President of the Council, French PR de La Sabliere, briefed the media and General Assembly President Eliasson on the process, in an effort to maintain the transparency of the process and encourage additional candidates to come forward prior to the first polls. (As expected, Eliasson circulated a memo of the conversation to all member states.) The field remains limited to the four declared Asian candidates, three of whom have officially notified the Council of their candidacies. In response to India's endorsement of Shashi Tharoor's candidacy, Pakistan is apparently considering entering a "spoiler" candidate of its own. There is also some speculation regarding the potential candidacy of the Turkish UNDP chief Kemal Dervis. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Security Council members have agreed on the specific modalities of the straw polls for the selection of the next Secretary-General, to begin in the second half of July. The SIPDIS French, as current President of the Security Council, have indicated that they anticipate conducting only one straw poll in July, on the four or five candidates expected to have been formally notified to the Council by that time. At least among the other members of the P-5, there is an understanding the process will go "dormant" in August, when many Ambassadors are on leave, only to pick up again - with further straw polls - in September. Running the straw polls -------------- ¶3. (U) Council members agreed in "informal informals" on July 3 on the mechanics of the first straw poll. As per previous practice, the straw poll ballots, at least in the first stage, will not differentiate between the votes of permanent and elected members of the Council. The ballot will offer Council members the ability to "encourage", "discourage" or "express no opinion" with regards to each candidate. Delegations will be able to "encourage" as many or few of the candidates as they like. ¶4. (U) Once the date of the poll is established, the French Presidency will circulate the ballot to Council members forty-eight hours prior to the scheduled vote. As per past practice and to maintain the privacy of Council deliberations, during the actual vote and tallying of results there will be no Secretariat presence in the consultations room and there will be no interpretation. Each Council member's participation will be limited to the Permanent Representative and one or two staff. Notifying the results -------------- ¶5. (U) Following the balloting, the Council President will contact each candidate and the Permanent Representative who endorsed his/her candidacy. The candidate (and his/her PR) will be told only the candidate's result and the number of votes received by the highest and lowest vote getters respectively. This format is designed to give each candidate a "sense" of where he or she is in the overall picture, without disclosing the extent of every candidate's support. ¶6. (C) There remains some underlying disagreement among some Council members on whether there should be additional notification of results in the future. The Chinese and Russians have generally advocated for restricting the flow of information. The French and the UK, however, are interested in disseminating the results more broadly. In particular, French PR de La Sabliere has argued that because the media will likely learn the vote tally, the Council should be more "transparent" in announcing results. "What worked for the Council ten years ago," he suggested, "might not work today." The French and UK have also suggested that the Council should discuss the overall process and the results of the voting with the President of the General Assembly, while asking the President to keep the vote count closely held. We expect this issue to be revisited by the Council as we progress to later stages of the balloting. ¶7. (U) On July 5, de La Sabliere spoke with President of the General Assembly Eliasson and orally conveyed the modalities for the straw polls as described above. Eliasson shared his notes of the discussion with the broader membership on July 7 (emailed to IO/UNP). De La Sabliere, as part of the President's regular monthly briefing to the press, also announced the start of the straw polling for the second half of July. The Candidates -------------- ¶8. (C) The Council agrees that the ballot will include only those candidates officially notified to the Council President by a member state. Council members considered whether or not to allow nominations from private individuals or NGOs, and determined that doing so would undermine the intergovernmental nature of the organization. Currently the Council has received notification from Sri Lanka (Dhanapala), India (Tharoor) and ASEAN on behalf of the Thai candidate (Surakiart). The Korean mission has informally told the Council that it intends to submit a formal notification for FM Ban in the near future. There is also widespread speculation in New York that Pakistan will introduce a candidate prior to the first straw poll. (It is rumored that Pakistani PR Munir Akram recently returned to Islamabad to seek approval for his own candidacy as a "spoiler" to India's Shashi Tharoor.) Others, including the French, are also quietly talking up the potential candidacy of UNDP head Kemal Dervis, who is widely rumored to be a possible candidate. ¶9. (C) In both public and private conversations, Council members, and particularly the P-5, are refraining from specific comment on any of the current candidates. The French have told us privately that they are not "overwhelmed" by any of the current candidates, but that they expect to be in a position to "support one of them" if no further candidates emerge. In a meeting of P-5 PRs, Chinese PR Wang suggested that it was a "problem" that the Council only had 3 or 4 candidates. Wang said that if there are other candidates, they should be encouraged to "take early action". He thought that the introduction of Shashi Tharoor into the race would generate "more serious candidates" in coming weeks, "which we need in order to get the best candidate." We have also heard that the Chinese are concerned that the India-Pakistan rivalry will overshadow the selection process and make it more difficult for an eventual Asian consensus candidate to emerge. Adding new names? -------------- ¶10. (C) During the 1991 election process, Council members were given a blank sheet of paper during the straw poll and access to a typewriter in order to "write in" additional names. Five additional names were introduced via this mechanism in 1991 and included on future ballots. For this election, the other P-5 PRs have argued strongly that such a mechanism should not be allowed. The UK's Jones Parry suggested that it would be unacceptable to allow Council members a means to introduce names that was not available to the other 177 members of the UN. France's de La Sabliere said that the idea was "irrelevant" as he was sure that any candidate, so introduced, would "stand no chance" of being elected by the Council. The Chinese and the Russians have also opposed the idea given their concern for the "transparency" of the process (despite their consistent support for "past practice" on other procedural questions). (Comment: We suspect that Russian and Chinese concerns are more related to the prospect that a non-Asian, and perhaps an Eastern European, candidate might be anonymously introduced by a Council member. End Comment) Shashi roils the water -------------- ¶11. (C) The Indian announcement of Under Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor's candidacy has upset some of the status quo thinking, though the Indian delegation in New York has been ambiguous in support of his candidacy. Indian PR Nirupam Sen has openly said that India had "endorsed" Tharoor but does not necessarily "support" his candidacy. Sen's statement has led to speculation that he and his delegation were not consulted in the decision and might have rather focused their attention on other issues, including India's Security Council aspirations. (Comment: India's July 3 letter to the Council officially nominating Tharoor does nothing to dispel this notion, as it notes that the Government of India "has decided to nominate" Tharoor. The letter does not even make a pro forma request of the Council to "favorably consider" the nomination. End Comment) ¶12. (C) Pakistani PR Akram was quick to claim that the Tharoor candidacy indicates that India had shelved its Security Council aspirations -- a claim that Sen has since been working hard to refute. Just before New Delhi's announcement, Sen told the Non-Aligned Movement (apparently with some resignation) that, with a candidate in the race, India would no longer be able to advocate for the idea of demanding multiple recommendations from the Security Council (USUN 1065),although his delegation still supported the idea. ¶13. (C) Sri Lankan candidate Jayantha Dhanapala told Ambassador Bolton on June 23 that, while Tharoor's candidacy was "no surprise", an Indian candidate brings "some significant baggage" to the campaign. For example, Dhanapala said, Secretaries-General have always stood for the universalization of treaties, a position that would be difficult for an Indian to take. How would Tharoor, as Secretary-General, be able to use his good offices to deal SIPDIS with tension in South Asia, he asked rhetorically. India has territorial disputes with three of its neighbors, he noted, and has "not exerted its influence" with Myanmar as one might expect. Dhanapala was concerned that a "tit-for-tat" campaign between India and Pakistan would only diminish the stature of the office and "does not augur well for the organization." Meanwhile, in the General Assembly... -------------- ¶14. (C) As noted above, the proposal for a GA resolution to "demand" the Security Council produce more than one recommendation for the next Secretary-General no longer has Indian leadership and does not appear to have otherwise garnered widespread support among the NAM. The current focus of the NAM seems to be on holding General Assembly "hearings" for the various candidates (a proposal first put forward by the Canadians). The latest version of this suggestion has emerged in a draft report of the ongoing working group on "General Assembly revitalization." USUN is working with other members of the Security Council to ensure that any GA involvement in the process is consistent with the Charter and does not impose artificial "requirements" for candidates that might serve to restrict the field of candidates or the Council's ability to recommend the best individual for the job. BOLTON