U.N. Under-Secretary-General Kofi Annan is leading the ongoing race to determine the next U.N. secretary-general, but still faces the possibility of a French veto before he can claim the world body’s top spot.

Annan, a Ghanaian who heads the U.N. peacekeeping department, would be the first career U.N. staffer to rise through the ranks to the top if he is selected by the 15-member Security Council. After seven rounds of secret “straw polls”, Annan Thursday led three African challengers with support from 14 of the members.

Only one permanent, veto-wielding member — believed to be France — voted against him. France, a supporter of incumbent Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has insisted that the next Secretary-General speak French.

“The next secretary-general will come from Africa and will very likely speak French,” French Ambassador Alain Dejammet said Thursday, reiterating Paris’s commitment to an African successor to Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian.

Annan reportedly speaks credible French, but the French argument is understood here as a code for a candidate who is actually from Francophone Africa.

By contrast, three diplomats from Francophone Africa — Amara Essy, the foreign minister of Cote d’Ivoire, Islamic Conference Secretary-General Hamid Algabid of Niger and former U.N. envoy Ahmedou Ould Abdallah of Mauritania — all fared poorly in Thursday’s straw polls.

Essy maintained support from seven countries, but faced negative votes from four non-permanent members and two veto- holders, reportedly the United States and Britain. Neither Algabid nor Ould Abdallah faced any potential vetoes, but Algabid only won support from four members, while Ould Abdallah’s highest total of support has been five. Nine votes are needed in the Council to recommend a secretary-general, who is then approved by the 185- nation General Assembly.

British Ambassador John Weston said the results Thursday were encouraging and indicated a positive movement in the search for an African to head the United Nations for the next five years.

Certainly Annan’s strong showing puts him, at least theoretically, on par with Boutros-Ghali, who has suspended his own race temporarily to allow other candidates to submit their names. Boutros-Ghali won the support of 14 of the 15 Council members in a formal vote for his second term on Nov 19. However, the one vote cast against him was a veto from the United States, which argues that Boutros-Ghali has not done enough to reform the United Nations.

But, as with the U.S. veto against Boutros-Ghali, the French stance against Annan has remained firm. French sources told IPS there was no sign that Paris will change its posture, but denied that the French government was blocking a consensus on a new secretary-general.

“We have blocked no-one,” a French diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. “The straw polls are not formal votes, and we have not said we will veto anyone. There is only one country that has blocked a consensus on a secretary-general,” he added, in reference to the U.S. veto of Boutros-Ghali.

Still, the pressure on France to accept Annan — who is responsible for maintaining the more than 27,000 U.N. peacekeepers worldwide, and who joined the United Nations in 1962 — is growing.

If Paris is seen to block Annan, U.S. and British diplomats, who have been backing the Ghanaian, may build pressure for the choice by pushing for alternatives who may be even less acceptable to the Council, some sources here say.

Diplomats here told IPS that one U.S. favourite, Olara Otunnu, head of the International Peace Academy, a New York think tank, could become a candidate shortly if the deadlock persists. Otunnu, a Ugandan diplomat, became a citizen of Cote d’Ivoire after Yoweri Museveni, the current Ugandan president, seized power in 1986.

Although Otunnu is respected among U.S. lawmakers for his efforts to train peacekeepers worldwide, he is viewed with suspicion by the Ugandan government and many officials here.

“Most Ugandans would quickly call him a war criminal,” one U.N. staffer told IPS on condition of anonymity. “He was an ambassador under (former Ugandan dictators) Idi Amin and Milton Obote.”

Other sources claim the Council may begin to sound out promising female candidates from around the world if the consensus for an African secretary-general does not show results soon. For Africa, which has lobbied hard this year to keep the post in African hands for another term, that could prod support behind any acceptable African choice, even if, as in Annan’s case, the candidate enjoys tacit U.S. support.

In any case, Security Council President Francesco Paolo Fulci of Italy said after the Thursday poll, voting is expected to go on Friday and likely beyond. “It took Julius Caesar a little while to cross the Rubicon,” Fulci noted.