Serbia’s candidate for the position of UN secretary-general is in second place overall after four rounds of informal straw polls held at the Security Council.
This is according to an unofficial UN document cited by the Belgrade-based daily Danas, that provided an overview of all four rounds of voting. Antonio Guterres of Portugal leads with 46 positive (“encourage”), seven negative (“discourage”) and seven neutral (“no opinion”) votes.
He is followed by Serbia’s Jeremic (33 positive, 18 negative, and nine neutral votes), and by Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajcak in third place (28-18-14).
An unnamed diplomatic source told the newspaper that this overview table was made ahead of the fifth round of voting, and described Jeremic as being “the only candidate, beside Guterres” whose results have not suffered great oscillations.
The upcoming fifth round, meanwhile, due to be held on Monday, “will show what kind of political bartering took place between the great powers after this week’s UN General Assembly session.”
“Starting on September 26, the pace of the selection of the secretary-general will pick up, considering that after the fifth round of the informal straw poll permanent members of the UN Security Council will as soon as on October 3 vote using colored cards,” the daily’s sources added.
The cards “will not indicate how each country voted” but will show that a vote came from a permanent member of the Council, i.e., those countries that “carry a lot of weight.”
Another such vote is possible by the end of October, as the plan is to finish the main part of the process by November, the newspaper said.
Source: Danas