A dark horse in the form of former Singapore PM Goh Chok Tong could queer the pitch for India’s candidate for the UN Secy General's post.
NEW DELHI: A dark horse in the form of former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong could queer the pitch for India’s candidate for the post of United Nations Secretary General, Shashi Tharoor.
Former diplomat Hamid Ansari agreed with the Ministry of External Affairs’s assessment. “If Goh joins the race, it would change the balance. He would be a high profile candidate and well, a former PM is a former PM. But it’s too early for a serious assessment. Let’s wait and see what happens,” he said.
Goh’s name has started cropping up after India announced Tharoor’s candidature, and his backers here see it as an attempt to block India’s nominee. They are particularly disturbed by reports that suggest the UK is actively backing Goh. China, which could be the spoiler for Tharoor, has maintained a strategic silence so far, saying only that the secretary general’s post should go to an Asian this time. The MEA feels that if China sees an Asian consensus emerging on Goh, it would back him. Certainly, China would prefer to see a Singaporean in the secretary general’s post, rather than an Indian.
Although India is aware of China’s reservations, it decided to go ahead with Tharoor because of the lack of unity among Asian nations on a candidate from the continent. The Thai nominee, deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, has ASEAN backing but the permanent five nations are reluctant to support him as UN secretary general because a Thai already holds a top UN post. Supachai Panitchpakdi is secretary general of UNCTAD. The P-5 also has reservations about the other candidates, Sri Lanka’s Jayantha Dhanapala and South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon.
China, for instance, is opposed to a South Korean, because of its proximity to North Korea while the US and European members of the P-5 feel that a Sri Lankan would be vulnerable because of the ongoing ethnic conflict in the island. It’s against this backdrop that India decided to field Tharoor but the backdrop seems to be shifting. These are early days yet with the contest field still unclear, so it’s unwise to come to any conclusions at this point.
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