PM steps in, starts helping Jeremic in his UN bid - report

PM steps in, starts helping Jeremic in his UN bid - report

According to the article, Vuk Jeremic - Serbia's former foreign minister and former president of the UN General Assembly - has thus become the front-runner in the race.

The magazine writes that PM Aleksandar Vucic "ordered the formation of a team to support Jeremic, after realizing that his chances are huge, but also after a plea by our representative to send letters to the reluctant countries confirming that Serbia was standing strongly behind her candidate."

After this letter was sent, Jeremic's four negative votes were reduced to two - "but more importantly, Britain abstained, although some media reported differently, so two permanent members of the Security Council from Europe - Britain and France - let our candidate pass."

Add to this that China and Russia gave negative votes in the second round to the Portuguese representative, Antonio Guterres, who had no negative votes in the first round - and it is clear that Jeremic is now the main favorite to become the next UN chief, according to the article.

It is also noted that China and Russia's second round votes came from their desire to respect the rotation principle, i.e., that the top UN job should this time be given to an Eastern European.

If, however, this rule were to be broken, Antonio Guterres and Susana Malcorra of Argentina would be the favorites, according to Nedeljnik's sources.

"Playing into the hands of our candidate is the tanking of other Eastern European 'favorites', primarily of Miroslav Lajcak, who is expected to withdraw from the race, and of Irina Bokova, considered a favorite in recent years," the article said, and continued:

"The biggest change, however, is the active involvement of the government of Serbia and Vucic in the whole process, while the assumption is that it was Vucic who managed to soften the stance of the British, via the new foreign secretary, Boris Johnson."

Finally, the last obstacle for Jeremic remains the United States and its ambassador to the UN, "although the possibility of waiting (until after) the U.S. election in November is being increasingly mentioned on the East River."

New rounds of voting have been scheduled for August 20 and 26, "when everything will be much clearer and when a list of candidates for the (official) vote is expected to be determined," Nedeljnik concluded.