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Bulgaria pulls support for UN secretary general candidate Irina Bokova Kristalina Georgieva, the EU's budget chief, joins race for top UN post
(about 2 hours later)
The Bulgarian government has said it is nominating Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for budget and human resources, for the post of UN secretary general and that it is withdrawing support for the candidate Irina Bokova. The EU budget commissioner, Kristalina Georgieva, entered the race to become the United Nations’ next secretary general on Wednesday, after the Bulgarian government swung its backing behind her.
Bokova, the director general of the UN cultural organisation, Unesco, came sixth among nine contenders in a secret ballot at the UN security council on Monday. The ballot showed the former Portuguese prime minister António Guterres was still leading the race to replace Ban Ki-moon. The country’s prime minister, Boyko Borisov, said that its previous candidate, Irina Bokova, the head of the UN cultural organisation Unesco, had failed to win sufficient support in the first five straw polls held by the security council, finishing sixth out of nine in the latest ballot on Monday. Georgieva put out a statement from Brussels saying she accepted the nomination.
Sofia had said it would reconsider its support for Bokova if she did not come first or second in the last ballot. There is no mechanism for a country to withdraw a candidacy and Bokova has been quoted in the Bulgarian press as saying she has no plans to quit, so both Bulgarian candidates may run in the next security council ballot, on October 5.
The Bulgarian prime minister, Boyko Borisov, announced the nomination of Georgieva during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We consider that this will be a more successful nomination,” he told ministers. It is unclear what impact Georgieva’s late entrance will have on a contest that is already volatile and unpredictable. António Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister and UN high commissioner, has emerged as the clear leader in successive ballots, but it is not known whether Russia will try to veto his candidacy in the October vote.
The foreign minister, Daniel Mitov, said Bulgaria needed to support a candidate who had a bigger chance to become the first eastern European to lead the global organisation. Moscow has said it would prefer the next UN secretary general to be an eastern European, and Georgieva won a good reputation as an effective administrator and advocate as head of EU humanitarian affairs.
“This was a difficult decision, but it was necessary, so that we give a chance to the (UN) eastern European group to have its secretary general,” Mitov told reporters. However, it is not certain that the Russians would accept Georgieva, who is also the vice-president of the European commission, which has been enforcing sanctions for the annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine. There was an angry backlash from the Kremlin when Angela Merkel lobbied Vladimir Putin in Georgieva’s favour during the G20 summit in China.
He said UN procedure did not allow for a country to withdraw the nominations and that Bokova would have to decide how to proceed. The French government was also irritated by Merkel’s attempt to influence the contest, and has strongly supported Guterres. Georgieva, a former World Bank economist, would not be assured of Paris’s support. And the UK has been lukewarm about her late run, fearing it would divert support from Guterres and thereby take pressure off Moscow to accept the Portuguese leader, who has wide support in the UN general assembly.
She was not immediately available for comment but had, prior to the government’s announcement on Georgieva, told a Bulgarian newspaper that she saw no reason to quit the race. Announcing his switch, Borisov said: “Last time, we gave a last chance in order to see once more what the results of the last vote on September 26 would be. The result is a slump of one place.”
The secret ballot on Monday was the fifth held by the security council in the leadership race, and polls will continue until a consensus is reached. The council will then formally recommend the candidate to the 193-member general assembly for election. The prime minister was quoted in the Sofia news agency as saying: “Because of the unspoken attitudes there, it would be good if the candidate is a woman and from eastern Europe. We reckon that this is a more successful nomination. Of course, we wish good luck to both Irina Bokova and Kristalina Georgieva.”
The next ballot is scheduled for 5 October. Ban will step down at the end of the year after serving two five-year terms. In her statement, Georgieva said: “I am deeply honoured by the decision of the government of my country to put my name forward for the post of secretary general of the United Nations. After careful consideration I have decided to accept the nomination.”
The incumbent, Ban Ki-moon, will step down at the end of the year after serving two five-year terms.