South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon led the polls from the start, emerging as the only candidate with the support of all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council (P5).

When the race to succeed Annan began in 2006, it was widely expected that the successful candidate would be Asian, as there had not been a Secretary-General from Asia since 1971.

[2] Noting that all Secretaries-General to date have been men, Equality Now launched a campaign for the election of a female Secretary-General, and identified a ‘sampling’ of 18 qualified women, including Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Louise Arbour, Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Tarja Halonen.

[3] Equality Now also noted that there are many qualified Asian women, including Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma, Sadako Ogata from Japan, Nafis Sadik from Pakistan, Anson Chan from Hong Kong, and Leticia Shahani from the Philippines.

[4] The idea of a female Secretary-General received some support, (including from Kofi Annan and US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton[5][6]), but no Asian women were nominated.

[7] However, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair did not qualify for the post, since one of the unofficial rules of the selection process is that a citizen of a permanent member could not hold the position.

[13] After the vote, Shashi Tharoor withdrew his candidacy,[14] and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly".