Inside the glass house

NEW YORK - When it comes to voting at the UN, there are at least two elections that generate aggressive campaigning in foreign capitals and in the corridors here: the Security Council and the Human Rights Council. A third, the election of the Secretary-General, is traditionally a misplaced privilege of the five big powers: the US, Britain, France, China and Russia.

Sri Lanka will be put to a test next week when it runs for re-election to the Human Rights Council amidst charges of human rights violations in the country. Will it be able to muster the minimum of 96 votes needed in the 192-member General Assembly, come May 21? And will the glorious uncertainties of UN elections help or hamper Sri Lanka?

Last week more than 20 national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wrote to UN member states urging them to reject Sri Lanka's bid for re-election. "To re-elect Sri Lanka based on its record of the last two years would weaken the Human Rights Council and indicate the international community is unconcerned with the grave human rights situation in Sri Lanka," the letter argued.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, who was in New York to present Sri Lanka's case before member states, told the Sunday Times he was confident that Sri Lanka would be re-elected -- at least judging by the number of pledges, both verbal and written, supporting Sri Lanka's candidacy. "We are happy we command the majority support, and we are optimistic we will succeed," he added.

Asked whether the NGO campaign would have an impact, he challenged the credibility of some of the organisations that were signatories to the letter. "There were both good organisations and paper organizations -- and where Sri Lanka is concerned, some of the organisations did not even have proper addresses," he said. "Let them say what they wish to say, but let member states decide." The voting, he said, was after all by member states, not by NGOs.

How credible are verbal and written pledges given by member states? When India ran against Japan for a non-permanent seat in the 15-member Security Council back in October 1996, it suffered a humiliating defeat. The vote was 142 for Japan and a measly 40 for India. By UN standards it was a monumental disaster. When a UN correspondent asked visiting Opposition leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee (who later became Prime Minister) for his reaction, just hours after the voting, he said: "The defeat was shocking. The margin was devastating."

Since the voting was by secret ballot, most of the countries that pledged their votes, including in writing, obviously reneged on their promises. Japan, on the other hand, using its economic clout and increased aid pledges, succeeded in garnering more votes at the expense of India. After that ignominious defeat, India never ran for election to the Security Council. But it is expected to run next year -- after a lapse of nearly 13 years - for a Security Council seat for 2010.

In a General Assembly of 192 members, secret balloting provides a protective cover to some member states who promise their vote to one country -- and furtively cast the ballot to another. It is all part of the sneaky art of global diplomacy.

India learnt it the hard way because reportedly it had written pledges from over 50 countries promising their votes for the Security Council seat, but received only 40 when the final results were announced. The culprits who switched votes in secret balloting were difficult to track down.

Asked about the credibility of pledges, Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN, explained that while he was confident of re-election, there was always a 10 percent plus or minus factor in confirmed votes and pledges by member states. He pointed out that the elections to the Security Council and the Human Rights Council were "capital based" -- meaning that decisions are taken in various foreign capitals, not at the UN missions in New York.

There was also another uncertainty that has to be factored in: the preference of individual ambassadors (who may or may not flout instructions from their capitals), he added. Since the balloting is secret, the commitment made by ambassadors is also a factor to be reckoned with.

A former Sri Lankan Permanent Representative (who, for obvious reasons, will remain anonymous) once confessed that irrespective of instructions he received from the foreign ministry, he would occasionally strike out on his own and cast his vote based purely on his own judgment. "How I vote at a UN election," he said, "will depend to a large extent on the friendships I have built with other ambassadors."

At the elections next week, there are six countries vying for four Asian slots: Bahrain, South Korea, Japan, East Timor, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The speculation here is that Bahrain, South Korea and Japan could make it to the Council while East Timor may lose in the first ballot, leaving Sri Lanka and Pakistan to battle for the fourth seat.

Asked by a Pakistani reporter whether a Sri Lanka-Pakistan confrontation was a possibility, Bogollagama dodged the question but came up with a diplomatic answer, raising a laugh at the news briefing: "We compete with Pakistan only in cricket," he said, not at UN elections. "And we won the World Cup."

Will Lanka get it right?