(Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusić, who has been nominated by the government as a candidate for the post of UN Secretary-General, said in New York on Sunday that the election of the next UN Secretary-General would be more transparent than it had been before.
"Criteria for the election of a new Secretary-General were adopted by a UN resolution on September 11," Pusić told Croatian reporters after attending a high-level meeting on criteria for the election of the next Secretary-General, held on the margins on the 70th UN General Assembly session.
A letter will be sent to member states in October or November to formally nominate their representatives, and the candidates will have a chance to introduce themselves to the General Assembly member states and answer questions, Pusić said, adding that it is possible that there will also be debates between candidates outside the UN headquarters.
"The election process will be more transparent, candidates will be more visible, the process will not take place behind closed doors as it has so far," Pusić said. She added that the rotation of secretary-generals on a regional basis has not been abandoned and that a consensus has been reached that in this election preference should be given to candidates from Eastern Europe.
Eastern Europe for now has four candidates. Apart from Pusić, those are UNESCO Secretary-General Irina Bokova, who has been nominated by Bulgaria, Danilo Tuerk and Srdjan Kerim, nominated by Slovenia and Macedonia respectively. Pusić said that there would certainly be more candidates from this region.
Pusić noted that there was also a consensus that the next Secretary-General should for the first time be a woman, but added that this did not rule out the appointment of a man. "It's quite certain that the permanent members of the Security Council will play a great role in the election and that it will take a lot of talks and negotiations to win their support," she said.