Portugal's former Prime Minister, António Guterres, is set to become next United Nations chief at the beginning of 2017.
The United Nations Security Council has voted Guterres as its unanimous choice to take over from Ban Ki-moon. The former Portuguese PM led the field as none of the five Security Council veto-wielding countries voted against him in the sixth secret ballot on Wednesday, October 5th.
The Security Council's 15 members cast ballots for each of the 10 candidates, marking them as 'encourage,' 'discourage,' or 'no opinion'. Guterres received 13 'encourage' votes and two 'no opinion' votes despite Russia previously preferring to see an eastern European candidate in power and others wanting a woman to lead the organisation.
The Russian UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said today, "Today, after our sixth straw poll, we have a clear favourite and his name is Antonio Guterres.
"We have decided to go to a formal vote tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, and we hope it can be done by acclamation," said Churkin, who is the council president for October.
The next step to be taken before Guterres is formally recommended to the General Assembly of 193 members is for the Security Council to adopt the further resolution on Thursday morning that needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes for it to pass.
Guterres is a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees (2005 to 2015) and was the prime minister of Portugal between 1995 and 2002.
As the UN’s refugee chief, Guterres appealed to the conscience of the international community over the worst refugee crisis since WWII, and vowed to carry on being a spokesman for the downtrodden if he became the United Nations secretary-general.
“I am totally committed because of what I felt as head of the UNHCR for 10 years,” said Guterres at a recent debate, “You can’t imagine what it is to see levels of suffering that are unimaginable.”
Guterres' stance on refugees makes his victory surprising as Russia and China have been resistant to activists in top UN posts.
“I think it’s an excellent choice,” said Michael Doyle, a former UN assistant secretary-general and now a Columbia University professor. “We have someone who has great political capability, having been prime minister of his country, he is a strong multilateralist, having a run the UNCHR at a time of tremendous challenges, and he has ways of communicating with an audience that are inspiring.”
The Speaker of Portugal's parliament telephoned the almost certain new secretary-general of the United Nations to congratulate him.
An "excited and delighted" Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues said that António Gutteres "will certainly be a UN secretary-general who is up to tackling the complexity of current world problems."
Environmentally friendly
Portugal's environmentalists were quick off the mark to celebrate the appointment of Guterres, recalling that he had authorised the country's first National Plan on Climate Change in 2001 and "laid the foundation for investments in renewable energy that have led to the country to have lower energy dependence and lower emissions of greenhouse gases," according to ZERO, the 'Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável.'
ZERO relies on the decisive role of António Guterres in climate policy and sustainable development, recalling that the Kyoto Protocol had to wait eight years between the signing and the ratification by 55 countries that represented 55% of global CO2 emissions, ZERO said that as of today, 72 countries representing 56.75% of global emissions have signed the Paris Agreement - this means that the Agreement will enter into force within 30 days.
"ZERO welcomes the choice of Eng. António Guterres as the next UN secretary-general. The answers given to the questions during the recent election process, gives enormous hope for urgent action and a great ambition on global measures and a concerted action by the United Nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support most vulnerable countries to cope with the effects of climate change. Likewise, the implementation of 17 goals for sustainable development adopted in September 2015, a crucial global agenda for 2030, should receive a fundamental boost."
