Candidates hoping to take on the top UN job after incumbent Secretary-General Kofi Annan's term expires in December are numerous. Given a general agreement among UN diplomats that the next secretary-general should come from Asia, part of a tradition to rotate the post between regions, most of the candidates are prominent Asian officials.

The list includes South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, former UN Disarmament Chief Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, chief of the UN Development Programme Kemal Dervis of Turkey and former Singaporean prime minister Goh Chok Tong.

With India recently entering the race by nominating and backing its citizen Shashi Tharoor, however, winning chances for other candidates seemed to be weakened. The evidence can be derived from the outcome of an informal poll held recently among the 15 Security Council members, which placed Tharoor in a close second to Moon. This, despite the fact that Tharoor, unlike the others, has not yet launched his campaign.

Selection process

The ballot gave Tharoor a good basis to build on. But the selection process of the next secretary-general, who is appointed by the UN General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council, is often influenced by debates and compromises behind closed doors.

There is a possibility, therefore, that some UN members block his way, simply because he is from India. The top UN post has traditionally gone to smaller countries to ensure balance within the organisation. But Tharoor can easily argue that despite being an Indian national, he has spent a major part of his life abroad and has never gone into Indian politics or been part of his country's civil service.

Moreover, his writings reflect his disagreement with India's policies over several issues, particularly the possession of nuclear weapons. In a recent interview by India's national television, his answer to a question on what good would it do India if he were elected was "Nothing at all, because I would be an Indian secretary-general, not India's secretary-general". It was said that New Delhi has formally put forward Tharoor's candidacy only because his selection would be a matter of pride for all Indians and would temporarily make up for India's dream of a permanent membership of the Security Council.

In fact, had qualifications been the only criteria for the post, Tharoor would have been declared the winner at this early stage. Unlike other candidates who have been engaged in promoting the foreign policy of one country, Tharoor has spent the past three decades promoting a collective international view.

He has worked for the UN since 1978, serving for 11 years with the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose Singapore office he headed during the Vietnamese "boat people" crisis. In 1989 he became a senior official at UN headquarters in New York, where until 1996 he was responsible for peacekeeping operations in former Yugoslavia.

Between 1997 and 2002, he served as executive assistant to Annan, director of communications and special projects in the latter's office and interim head of the UN Department of Public Information. And since June 2002, he has been the Undersecretary-General for Communications and Public Information, a post that includes the management of more than 700 employees in New York and around the world.

Tharoor, therefore, has grown up in the UN system and consequently is well aware of all challenges faced by the organisation. This means he is well-suited to take on the difficult task of running the world body with greater flexibility, efficiency and accountability.

His strong loyalty to the UN is demonstrated in his answer to a question posed recently by a leading newspaper: "Why on earth do you want a job that was once described by the first UN secretary-general Trygve Lie as the most impossible one on earth?"

He said that he strongly believed in the organisation which "has an enormous potential to do good in the world", adding that "there could be no greater challenge and no greater worthwhile way of spending the rest of my life than advancing the international cause for which the UN stands".

Besides, Tharoor is highly educated. Born in London in 1956 to a family from Kerala, he grew up in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. He was a gifted student, always receiving the Best Student Award. Following his graduation from Delhi's elite St Stephen's College with a degree in History, he got a scholarship from the American Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. There, he managed to receive a doctorate and two masters degrees at the age of 22 and became the youngest student to get a PhD.

Gifted writer

In addition, Tharoor is a gifted writer and author. In fact, he has had a love affair with writing and reading since the age of 6. As a challenge, Tharoor read 365 books in a year when he was 12 and wrote his first novel before his 11th birthday.

Explaining this, he quoted George Bernard Shaw, "I write for the same reason the cow gives milk", adding that he would suffer if he did not write, just as a cow would suffer if it was not milked.

So far he has written eight books, the last of which was published in 2005 titled Bookless in Baghdad. This includes several elegant novels chronicling the fantasies and foibles of India, some of which won literary awards, such as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Excelsior Award for excellence in literature.