SYG SELECTION: "COLORED BALLOTS" SECURE BAN AS

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 001898 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2016 TAGS: PREL UNSC UN SUBJECT: SYG SELECTION: "COLORED BALLOTS" SECURE BAN AS FAVORITE REF: USUN 1881 Classified By: Ambassador John R. Bolton, Permanent Representative, for reasons 1.4 b,d. ¶1. (C) Summary. Ban Ki-Moon cemented his lead in the fourth Secretary-General straw poll, the first to use differentiated SIPDIS ballots to identify the votes of Permanent Members. FM Ban received fourteen "encouraging" votes, with one elected member of the Council expressing "no opinion". Each of the other five candidates had at least one "discouraging" vote from a Permanent Members. Based on the clear support for Ban and the lack of a potential veto, the Council agreed to take a formal vote to recommend a candidate to the General Assembly on Monday, October 9. End Summary. ¶2. (C) The Security Council held its fourth straw poll on candidates for Secretary-General on October 2. As per the three previous ballots, Council members were asked to choose whether to "encourage", "discourage", or offer "no opinion" on the six candidates remaining in the race. The P5 were, for the first time, given a different ballot than that given to the elected members of the Council. The overall results: -- FM Ban: 14 encourage; 0 discourage; 1 no opinion. -- U/SYG Tharoor: 10 encourage; 3 discourage; 2 no opinion. -- President Vike-Freiberga: 5 encourage; 6 discourage; 4 no opinion. -- DPM Surakiart: 4 encourage; 7 discourage; 4 no opinion. -- Ashraf Ghani: 4 encourage; 11 discourage; 0 no opinion. -- Prince Zeid: 2 encourage; 8 discourage; 5 no opinion. ¶3. (C) The P-5 cast their ballots as follows: -- FM Ban: 5 encourage; 0 discourage; 0 no opinion. -- U/SYG Tharoor: 3 encourage; 1 discourage; 1 no opinion. -- President Vike-Freiberga: 3 encourage; 2 discourage; 0 no opinion. -- DPM Surakiart: 1 encourage; 2 discourage; 2 no opinion. -- Ashraf Ghani: 2 encourage; 3 discourage; 0 no opinion. -- Prince Zeid: 2 encourage; 1 discourage; 2 no opinion. Formal Decision set for Monday, October 9 -------------- ¶4. (C) Following the conclusion of the straw poll, Council members turned to the question of when to take the formal decision on the Secretary-General recommendation, now that Ban has secured overwhelming support without a discouraging vote from a Permanent Member. The Council informally agreed to vote to make a formal recommendation to the General Assembly on Monday, October 9. ¶5. (C) Ambassador Bolton, though advocating for a rapid conclusion to the process in the Council, agreed to the proposed timing, which was sought by Japan and other Council members. (Earlier on Monday, Ambassador Bolton met with Japanese PR Oshima, as part of the regular monthly bilateral consultations with the incoming Council President. Oshima specifically asked Ambassador Bolton not to have the formal decision on Ban this week, given that new Japanese PM Abe plans to visit South Korea and China over the weekend.) ¶6. (U) After the ballot, Tharoor announced to the press that he was pulling out of the race and had written to FM Ban to congratulate him. BOLTON