Looking Forward to Kofi Annan's Successor

Boker Tov, Boulder! has some good news--Kofi Annan will be out as Secretary General of the UN at the end of the year.

The likely replacement may be good news as well. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon.
According to the Jerusalem Post, he was the first South Korean foreign minister to visit Israel and is generally considered to a friend of Israel.

On the other hand, the UN itself is unhappy with the potential choice:

Senior officials at the United Nations expressed despair on Friday at the prospect of Kofi Annan being succeeded as Secretary General by Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean Foreign Minister.

"The mood among staff is glum," one of the officials said. "We are not very excited about the outcome." With morale low at the UN after five years dominated by divisions, deadlock and corruption, they are sceptical about Ban's ability to turn the organisation round or provide the strong, inspirational leadership they had been hoping for.

Another official, who has met Ban several times, said: "He is pretty faceless and does not have much charisma. Kofi, for all his problems, is a man of considerable dignity, political insight and wide international experience."

If the UN itself is unhappy with the choice, that is a good sign already--and if a UN official can describe the scandal plagued Kofi Annan as "a man of considerable dignity, political insight and wide international experience," then the UN is clearly overdue for a change.

Technorati Tag: UN and Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon.