Former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres, who is virtually certain to be the next UN secretary-general, says he wants to be “an honest broker, a bridge builder and someone who tries to create conditions for consensus.”
The veteran politician and diplomat, who won unanimous backing from the UN Security Council on Wednesday, said in an interview during his campaign that if he got the job his aim would be to work with all countries to help solve the myriad problems on the global agenda.
The Security Council was scheduled to meet behind closed doors yesterday morning for a formal vote on Guterres’ candidacy.
Photo: EPA
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, expressed hope that the council would recommend Guterres by “acclamation” to the 193-member General Assembly, which must approve a successor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31.
Guterres topped all six informal polls in the council after receiving high marks from almost every diplomat for his performance in the first-ever question-and-answer sessions for candidates in the General Assembly.
He was the only candidate of the 10 in the race to receive no “discourage” votes in Wednesday’s poll, which was the first to use colored ballots to distinguish the votes of the five veto-wielding permanent members — the US, UK, Russia, China and France.
The result disappointed campaigners for a woman or East European to be the world’s top diplomat for the first time.
Guterres will almost certainly select a woman as deputy secretary-general and he said in the interview that one of the things that is “crucial” at the male-dominated UN is “to have gender parity.”
He said that his 10 years as the UN high commissioner for refugees, which ended in December last year, were “excellent preparation” for a secretary-general who needs to be an honest broker and be seen by countries as independent in order to promote consensus and overcome crises.
“I think we are living in a world where we see a multiplication of new conflicts, and you see an enormous difficulty in solving the conflicts,” Guterres said. “There is a clear lack of capacity in the international community to prevent and to solve conflicts.”
What is needed, he said, is a new “diplomacy for peace,” which requires discreet diplomatic contacts and shuttling among key players in conflicts and disputes.
The secretary-general should also engage as much as possible and “act with humility to try to create the conditions for member states that are the crucial actors in any process to be able to come together and overcome their differences,” he said.
Guterres said that the simple answer to why he wants to be secretary-general can be found in “The Parable of the Talents” from the New Testament, which has been the central thing in his life.
“I think that one in life receives a lot of gifts, and one has the responsibility to pay back, no? And to multiply the gifts that were received,” he said.
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