Latvia's President and Thailand's candidate pulled out of the race to be United Nations chief on Thursday after Security Council members made it clear South Korea's Ban Ki-moon would get the job, according to Reuters. Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga had campaigned on a platform of overturning what she sees as an "all boys" club that has given the U.N. leadership to men from rotating regions. "Her candidacy highlighted...the regrettable fact that a woman has never held the post of Secretary-General, nor has the Eastern European group ever been represented at the highest level of the UN," the President's office said in a statement. Earlier on Thursday Thailand's candidate, Surakiart Sathirathai, a deputy prime minister in the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a Sept. 19 military coup, also withdrew. In an informal ballot on Monday, the 15 members of the Security Council gave the South Korean Foreign Minister 14 favourable votes and one abstention in the race to succeed Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose term expires on Dec. 31.
