leading candidates<\/a> \u2014 U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi of Argentina, and Guyana\u2019s U.N. ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett \u2014 all received two red \u201cdiscourage\u201d votes, according to two diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the poll was private.<\/p>\nGrynspan, a former Costa Rican vice president, remained at the top of the polling with nine \u201cencourage\u201d votes.<\/p>\n
While it was not known how each council member voted, numerous U.S. officials have made clear for the past several weeks that none of the candidates is ideal from the perspective of the Trump administration. It has focused on radical reform of the global body and the withdrawal, or planned withdrawal, of the United States from multiple U.N. agencies.<\/p>\n
However, despite the administration\u2019s differences with the U.N., its bureaucracy, and reservations about who the next secretary-general should be, the officials have not ruled out supporting one of the announced candidates.<\/p>\n
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the U.S. position was still being refined and would be made clear in the coming days.<\/p>\n
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz told reporters as he left the closed council meeting that the U.N. needs \u201cstrong, energetic leadership\u201d that is going to take the 193-member world body back to its original focus on peace and security. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis institution, after 80 years, has tried to become everything to everyone,\u201d Waltz said. \u201cWe put it on a diet so to speak \u2014 we\u2019re all a little better off after being on a diet \u2014 and (need to) get it focused on peace and security.\u201d<\/p>\n
By tradition, the job of secretary-general rotates by region, and this is Latin America\u2019s turn. There also is pressure to pick a woman, who would become the first female leader of the U.N. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand there is a desire for regional rotation,\u201d Waltz said. \u201cOf course, if the best candidate is a woman, we would welcome that \u2014 but we really just need the best candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two candidates at the bottom of Friday’s straw poll were women \u2014 Maria Fernanda Espinosa, a former General Assembly president and foreign minister of Ecuador, and Ivonne A-Baki, a former Ecuadorian ambassador. Two African contenders \u2014 former U.N. diplomat Olara Otunnu of Uganda and Senegal\u2019s former president, Macky Sall \u2014 each received 10 \u201cdiscourage\u201d votes.<\/p>\n
The next straw poll, with red ballots, will be held next week, the two diplomats said.<\/p>\n
Waltz and Russia\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia both left open the possibility of new candidates. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to get this done, I’m confident, before the end of the year,\u201d Waltz said. \u201cThat is my wish, definitely,\u201d Nebenzia said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UNITED NATIONS — The latest straw poll in the selection of the next U.N. secretary-general on Friday showed that none of the seven candidates has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":367168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6967,2549,6676,41564,36369,38233,7817,4914,7412,9184,3933],"class_list":["post-367165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ecuador","tag-france","tag-latin-america","tag-maria-fernanda-espinosa","tag-nuclear-chief","tag-president-and-international-minister","tag-senegal","tag-trump-administration","tag-u-n-safety-council","tag-vassily-nebenzia","tag-vice-chairman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367167,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367165\/revisions\/367167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}