First straw poll of next UN chief behind closed doors

The Security Council is scheduled to hold the first straw poll on Thursday on the next UN secretary-general selection and the process will be kept in confidentiality, said the council's president here on Wednesday.

"There will be no discussion in the council; it will be a voting process, we would like to make sure that the fairness and confidentiality of voting is respected," Xinhua quoted Japan's Ambassador Koro Bessho, who has assumed the council's presidency for July, as saying.

It is expected that there would be no announcement of the results for the secret balloting.

Analysts said the 15 Security Council members will cast ballots which marked by three columns—"encouraged," "discouraged," and "no opinion expressed" for each candidate.

So far, 12 candidates for the post of the next UN chief have been officially declared. A total of 180 ballots will be cast by council members tomorrow.

The incumbent UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is going to conclude his term at the end of 2016. The council's decision to select the top leader of the world organisation will come later this year.

Under the UN Charter, the UN Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. In practice, the Security Council, particularly its five permanent members, will make the final choice and send a single candidate to the General Assembly for approval.

This year, for the first time in history, the candidates have been asked to submit their resumes and taken part in open dialogues with the UN 193-member General Assembly, which has been considered as a move to make the selecting process more transparent and inclusive.