In less than a year's time, the world will be seeing a new man in charge of the United Nations. As Kofi Annan, the incumbent, is quietly preparing his exit, the Security Council is set to agonise over his successor.

Arguing that the UN, having been under the leadership of three Europeans, one Asian, one South American and two Africans, should now elect an Asian again, Asean, the Southeast Asian grouping, has thrown its weight behind Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, by far the only candidate openly running for the post.

This initiative was first welcomed by China as a show of its diplomatic goodwill to and solidarity with Southeast Asia, and then by Russia, which is clearly vying for influence in the region also.

But any conclusion that the next secretary-general will come from Asia is premature. The United States and Britain have both stated that when it comes to appointing a UN head, capabilities and track records trump regionality, while falling short of dismissing Asia's claim. A veto by either of them will mean a tortuous and taxing process all over again.

Past S-Gs

In 1981, Washington forced Salim Ahmed Salim out of the race because it was still bearing grudges against the Tanzanian over the latter's role in enabling the entry of the People's Republic of China (PRC) into the UN 10 years earlier. The Americans had wanted the then S-G Kurt Waldheim, later president of Austria, to serve a third term. This was, ironically, vetoed by Beijing.

The Big Five (comprising also of the Republic of China, or Taiwan, before its ignominious replacement by the PRC in 1971), initially, all desired the S-G to be merely an administrator overseeing the running of the gigantic UN, rather than a world player to be reckoned with. Dag Hammarskjld of Sweden departed from this expectation and became a fiercely independent S-G by actively engaging himself in solving a series of conflicts in the African continent throughout the 1950s, winning trust and respect from around the globe.

In the 1990s, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the French-speaking Egyptian diplomat, was unfairly blamed by the US for the failure to rescue Bosnia from the massacre by the Serbs. Prior to this, he had enraged the Clinton administration by exchanging a succession of spats with the White House over the debacle in Somalia. Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, saw him as "independent, arrogant and stubborn".

Annan had a good start with the US mainly because he was a compromise figure acceptable both to Washington and Paris the latter having demanded that the former provide a candidate with French language proficiency in place of Boutros-Ghali. Unlike his predecessor, Annan later earned the trust of the Americans by giving in to the US-led military actions in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

But the Ghanaian, having secured his reappointment at the end of 2001, proved to be too much of his own man in his second term. First, he openly declared the 2003 War on Iraq to be illegal to the chagrin of the American representatives.

Secondly, Annan disregarded the position of the US and came up with his own vision for the future of the UN, unraveling a host of diplomatic tussles that also involved several major UN patrons, such as China, India, Japan and Russia. No wonder the oil-for-food scandal flared up all at a sudden, and the whole hooha over the UN reform has become political cant. The call is loud, but the action is minuscule. It has been repeated so often that it now appears as vacuous and meaningless as watching a Malaysian football match.

US ambassador to nowhere

Anticipating the important moments at the UN in the coming years, President Bush, invoking his prerogative, appointed John Bolton as US ambassador while the Congress was in recess in August 2005, effectively avoiding the high chances of his man's being voted down by the Democrats opposed to the appointment. Robert Boorstin, a national security adviser during the Clinton administration, described the new US envoy to the UN as " a walking political time bomb ".

Or one may call him 'a US ambassador to nowhere', as the very same Bolton once made it blatantly clear that "there is no United Nations... there is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that's the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along".

With the hawkish Bolton at the UN, Bush can now sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that his masked goal ensuring the world body submit to the will of the US will be safeguarded, be it the appointment of the next S-G or the upcoming deliberation on Iran's nuclear controversy.

The possible hindrance from the US aside, it would seem that the rest of the Big Five can hardly find a candidate that they will all agree on. Although Equality Now, a women's network, has begun to campaign for a woman S-G and provided a list of hopefuls of good standing, none of the five powers has responded positively to this call.

Another strong contender, Jayantha Dhanapala, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the US and UN undersecretary general for disarmament, could see his chances go down the drain simply because of his South Asian roots, commonly perceived by the Anglo-Saxon world to be anti-colonialistic.

Eastern European countries, no longer under the communist tutelage, harbour high hopes too, and former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga make no secrets of their intention to run for the highest UN office. Their biggest obstacle will come from Russia that has become much more watchful after the colour revolutions in its "Near Abroad" over the last two years.

Similarly, past experience may have put Ban Ki Moon in good stead for the job. The South Korean prime minister must nevertheless convince the Chinese and the Russians that, being a leader of a country tied to strategic and security partnership with the US, he would serve global rather than US interests.

Clinton for UN sec-gen?

Finally, some in Clinton's circle have let it be known that the former president has taken a keen interest in the race also. This scenario would no doubt spice up the otherwise dull competition. However, given his splendid records of invincibility from the Arkansas governorship to the two-term presidency - Clinton might not join the fray unless his victory was successfully negotiated behind closed doors, as no leader of his stature would relish being humiliated on such scale.

Before this comes to pass, Clinton has to cross several hurdles. For one, there has never been a candidate for the UN top job from any of the Big Five. Should Clinton decide to run, it would be an epochal break with this tacit but vital convention.

Moreover, it is not clear if China and Russia, wary of the growing unilateral tendencies of the Bush administration and its determination to defy international law whenever necessary would be pleased to see an S-G Clinton.

Meanwhile, the French, much traumatised by the decades-long Anglo-American domination, could resort to the old trick again by insisting that the former US president take up some French lesson. With the race still some months away, there is ample time for Clinton to do just that.