The former Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Guterres poised to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations as the President of Security Council, Vitaly Churkin announced that the 15-member nation council unanimously agreed on the same.

In a secret informal poll, among the 15-members, Guterres won 13 encouragement, no discouragement and 2 no opinion votes, said Churkin, who is also Russia’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations. Two no opinion votes came from two nations among the permanent members of the UNSC, United States, China, Russia, France and Britain.

Churkin added that the Council will hold the formal voting on Thursday morning and expressed hope that council will recommend Guterres by acclamation to the 193-member General Assembly.

Guterres would be replacing the current Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, 72, of South Korea, whose second term is ending on December 31. He will be appointed as the SG for five-year term starting from January 1, 2017.

For the first time, the Q&A session was held for all the 13 candidates for the post of the Secretary-General in the UN and according to many Guterres performed best in his two-hour session.

The job of Secretary-General has rotated among regions Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. Russia, a part of East Asia region have been complaining that they have never had a secretary-general and it was their turn. More than 50 nations were campaigning for the Woman SG as the UN never had a woman as a Secretary-General.

Guterres, who had been a PM of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, has also been the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015.   

By Prajakt K