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		</div><p>The United Nations Security Council has unanimously agreed that Portugal&#8217;s former prime minister Antonio Guterres should be the next UN Secretary-General.</p>
<p>Russia&#8217;s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin made the announcement surrounded by the 14 other council ambassadors after they held a sixth informal poll of the 10 candidates behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Mr Churkin announced that the council would hold a formal vote on Thursday morning to recommend Mr Guterres to the 193-member General Assembly, which must approve a successor to Ban Ki-moon, whose second five-year term ends on December 31.</p>
<p>By tradition, the job has rotated among the regions. Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have all held the post. Eastern European nations, including Russia, argue that they have never had a secretary-general and that it should be their turn.</p>
<p>There has also never been a woman secretary-general, and more than 50 nations and many others campaigned to elect the first female UN chief.</p>
<p>But Mr Guterres, who served as the UN&#8217;s high commissioner for refugees until December, topped all six polls despite being from western Europe.</p>
<p>For the first time this year, the General Assembly&#8217;s members held two-hour question-and-answer sessions with all 13 candidates who entered the race, and in the eyes of many diplomats Mr Guterres performed the best.</p>
<p>In the fifth &#8220;straw&#8221; poll, however, he still received two &#8220;discourage&#8221; votes, and there was a lot of speculation about whether Russia, which is a member of the East European group, would vote for him.</p>
<p>The sixth informal poll on Wednesday morning was the first to use coloured ballots to distinguish the votes of the five veto-wielding Security Council members &#8211; the United States, Russia, China, the UK and France. Diplomats said in the vote that Mr Guterres received 13 &#8220;encourage&#8221; votes, no &#8220;discourage&#8221; votes, and two registering &#8220;no opinion&#8221;.</p>
<p>Mr Churkin paid tribute to all 13 candidates who entered the race before announcing the Security Council&#8217;s support for Mr Guterres. Three dropped out before Wednesday&#8217;s vote, leaving five men and five women in the race.</p>
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