The quiet diplomat who may lead the UN

The diplomat in the lead to head the UN for the next decade is skilled in compromise – exhibiting a deliberately bland style that was expected to stand him in good stead during a UN Security Council poll Monday over a successor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The candidacy of South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon hinges on the five permanent members: the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia. While the outcome is still uncertain, the soft-spoken career diplomat is the only one of the current candidates who has the minimum of nine positive votes.

Mr. Ban has the support of the US, which wants the process wrapped up this month, and China is expected to give Ban the nod. Indeed, Ban's most saleable quality is his ability to get along with all sides, building consensus in the process. Ban's evenhanded approach, analysts say, may be what's needed to bring a semblance of harmony and cohesion among UN members.

"He's extremely nonpolitical," says Moon Jong In, professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul. "He's willing to listen to anybody. He doesn't have charismatic leadership – he has consensual leadership."

Conservatives, while highly critical of the left-leaning government of President Roh Moo Hyun, agree. "At least he hasn't done any harm as foreign minister," says a retired business consultant here. "Conservatives like him. It would be a great thing if he became secretary-general."

In his 36-year career, Ban has proven the ultimate diplomat while treading gingerly as foreign minister for the past 32 months through the minefield of US-South Korean relations and North Korea's refusal to return to nuclear talks for nearly a year.

In fact, Han Song Ryol, North Korea's deputy permanent representative to the UN, told the leftist newspaper Hangyoreh that acceptance of Ban as Mr. Annan's successor would be "good for the Korean people" and that "nonaligned nations have a good feeling about him."

In a poll last week, Ban got 13 votes of "encouragement" against only one of "discouragement" and one giving "no opinion." Since the five permanent members have the power of veto, the "no opinion" vote," if cast by one of them, would knock him out of the race even before the General Assembly of all 192 members casts a binding vote on the Security Council's choice.

Ban has said with characteristic sangfroid that he's "reasonably confident" the five permanent members are on his side. That coolly stated view masks the intensity of a carefully modulated campaign in which he has often appeared to be emulating Annan's style.

Hosting Annan last May, Ban took turns with the secretary-general in pressing for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. But they quietly made plain that they did not agree with the US emphasis on the North's human rights or counterfeiting efforts, saying that nuclear weapons took top "priority."

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