Secret votes and vetoes: How will the next UN chief be picked?

Secret votes, coloured ballot papers, straw polls and backroom efforts to force a consensus — with the threat of powerful vetoes hanging over it all. These could be the contours of how boards of multibillion-dollar corporations decide on contentious issues. It is also the way the United Nations picks its secretary-general, the person at the apex of a vast and sprawling machinery tasked with upholding fast-fraying international laws and practices.

That process is now barrelling towards a tense climax, with the UN Security Council (UNSC) holding multiple straw polls in a bid to select its new secretary-general by December 31, when incumbent Antonio Guterres must step down. The UNSC recommends a candidate who gets nine votes without a veto from its five permanent members. The process ends after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) gives its seal of approval to that candidate.

The council has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – who hold veto power.