 "Antonio Guterres")
The man to hold what is termed the 'most important job in the world' from 2017 is a socialist.
Antonio Guterres will be the next secretary-general of the United Nations. India has already congratulated him, having backed his bid. He is a former prime minister of Portugal, former general secretary of the Socialist International and headed the United Nations Commission for Human Rights before he got his new job. When he was sure he had got it, he made no secret of the fact that he was delighted. "Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!" he tweeted, saying he was "honoured and happy".
Gender could have come in Guterres' way. Many, especially in the US and UK, wanted the job to finally go to a woman. Realpolitik came to his aid. Irina Bokova, head of Unesco, was pushed by Russia but resisted by the very same US and UK, being seen as too close to the Russian establishment. Kristalina Georgieva, a 63-year-old Bulgarian who currently heads the European Union budget and human resources division, was another potential candidate, but left it too late. In fact, five of the 10 candidates who were contesting till Guterres bested them were women. They will have to wait.
An engineer by training, Guterres first entered politics in 1976 in Portugal's first democratic election, after five decades of dictatorship. He rose in the ranks, becoming leader of the Socialist party in 1992 and elected prime minister in 1995.
As head of the UNHCR from 2005 to 2015, Guterres led the agency through some of the worst refugee crises, including in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. He'd repeatedly appealed to Western states to do more to help those fleeing the conflicts.
Former Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva said earlier this year that Guterres had "left a legacy" at the refugee agency. "That means he is a respected voice and all the world listens to him", according to the AFP news agency.
Last week, the 15 members of the Security Council held their sixth 'straw poll' to decide the future leader. Thirteen countries encouraged his candidacy and none discouraged it, making him the clear winner of a process which began publicly in April.
The first noises Guterres is making suggest he is going to make the most difficult job in the world even more difficult. "The international community spends much more time and resources managing crises than preventing them. A secretary-general must continuously seek to contribute to reducing the number of conflicts and, consequently, the number of victims," he said during his campaign.
In a world racked with people fleeing conflict spots for security, Guterres' experience in handling refugees will inform his new responsibility. "We can't deter people fleeing for their lives," he wrote in TIME magazine last year. "They will come. The choice we have is how well we manage their arrival, and how humanely."
January 1, 2017, will be his first day in office.
