HERE are some of the confirmed candidates:

Antunio Guterres

The most high-profile candidate to date, Guterres was Portugal’s prime minister from 1995 to 2002 and then UN high commissioner for refugees for a decade from 2005 to 2015, where he often played the role of the West’s conscience as it failed to respond adequately to the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. The UNHCR is generally seen as one of the more functional arms of the UN and is held in high esteem. There is no doubt Guterres has ample experience of dealing with both the UN machine and with member states, and is a passionate spokesman. Perhaps too passionate for the Security Council “P5” powers, who may fear his independent streak. His gender and region of origin also weigh against him.

Natalia Gherman

Gherman was deputy prime minister and foreign minister in Moldova and has been an ambassador in several European capitals. Her principal UN involvement has been helping to push its development agenda with an emphasis on human rights and gender equality. Her application letter points out that in 2014 the Guardian listed her as one of “seven women to watch in global politics who are leading change all over the world”. The long-running friction between Moldova and Russia over the breakaway region of Transnistria could mean she is blocked by Moscow.

Danilo Türk

Türk is one of modern Slovenia’s founding fathers, having led the campaign for human rights in the last years of Yugoslavia, as well as being a long-standing presence at the UN. In 1985, when he was 33, he drafted the text of the Declaration on the Right to Development. He served as the assistant secretary general for political affairs under Kofi Annan, and then rounded off his career in the largely ceremonial role of Slovenian president 2007-12.

Igor Luksic

Luksic is the former prime minister and current foreign minister of another small former Yugoslav republic, Montenegro, and is not yet 40, making him one of the younger contenders. He has been on the pro-Western, pro-Nato wing of Montenegrin politics, which will not endear him to Moscow. On the other hand he is one of the more literary of the candidates, having published three volumes of poetry and prose, The Book of Laughter, The Book of Fear and The Book of Doubt, all of which would come in handy in the UN top job.

Vesna Pusic

Pusic, Croatia’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, has impeccable pro-democracy credentials. She set up the first feminist organisation in former Yugoslavia, organised civic society meetings between Croatians and Serbians when the two countries were at war and has been a consistent advocate for LGBT rights in post-communist Croatia, riling the right and the church hierarchy. That activism and her generally pro-Western record are likely to be an issue for Moscow.

Srgjan Kerim

Another former foreign minister, from another former Yugoslav republic, Kerim is Macedonia’s entry to the contest. His claim to UN experience is his time spent as president of the general assembly from 2007 and 2008. He also stands out a little from the crowd because he has hands-on business experience, running a media company in Skopje. He also claims to speak nine languages, though four of them are pretty similar.

Irina Bokova

The Bulgarian director-general of Unesco is an early favourite in the race because she ticks a lot of boxes. She is a woman who has run a big UN institution for seven years, she has friendly relations with Moscow (which may believe she will be sympathetic, having grown up in a true-believer communist household), and she has already won something of a Bulgarian primary, edging out another strong contender, Kristalina Georgieva, an EU commissioner and economist, to get Sofia’s official nomination.

Following are the possible contenders:

Helen Clark

The former New Zealand prime minister and head of the UN’s development programme is the most powerful woman in the organisation. Her UNDP role has won her many developing world friends in the general assembly. Furthermore, no one from her region has ever had the top job, so her backers could argue it is as much her turn as any of the Eastern Europeans.

Angela Merkel

Merkel has been touted as a possible contender as a result of her political clout for being the most powerful, enduring political figure in Europe, and moral authority for her principled stand towards the refugee crisis. If she were to leave the German chancellery, she would quickly become an interesting candidate, but her political career in her homeland still seems to have some time to run, and it is unclear whether she would give up a position of real geopolitical power to be a servant to other member states on the Security Council.

—By arrangement with the Guardian

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2016