Who will head the UN?
Jayantha Dhanapala, Sri Lanka
Another frontrunner, Dhanapala, 67, is now senior advisor to Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Born December 30, 1938, Dhanapala was barely 19 when he won an essay competition which took him to the United States in 1957, where he met then Senator John F Kennedy and was introduced to President Dwight D Eisenhower.
'Following a stint in the private sector in Sri Lanka, he ranked first in seeking entry into the Sri Lankan foreign service in 1965 and served thereafter in diplomatic postings in London, Beijing, Washington, DC, New Delhi and Geneva, culminating in ambassadorial appointments in Geneva (1984 to 1987) accredited to the UN and in Washington DC (1995 to 1997),' says his official biography.
Dhanapala served as director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva (1987 to 1992). In April 1995, he presided over the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference and was later 'hand picked by Kofi Annan to take on the challenging job of under secretary general to re-establish the Department of Disarmament after the UN reforms of 1997 (1998 to 2003).'
In June 2004, the UN veteran was appointed special adviser to the Sri Lankan president and secretary general of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process in Sri Lanka. His formal candidature for the top UN job was announced in December 2004, and he quit the peace process panel in November 2005 to further this ambition.
His long stint with the UN is seen as a negative as well as a positive factor. But what could hurt his chances more is the renewed ethnic conflict in his country.
Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
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