Asian officials and leaders have been canvassing hard for international support, particularly from Africans and Latin Americans, to agree that it is "Asia's turn" to provide the U.N. secretary-general. Although there is no formal rule about regions taking turns, just as there is no formal rule that bars a candidate from one of the permanent members of the Security Council, strong traditions have developed over the years.

Asian leaders have used events such as the Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta, the 26-nation Asian Cooperation Dialog in Islamabad in March, and last week's Group of 77 countries in Doha to lobby for an Asian candidate, the first since Burma's U Thant in the 1960s.

The problem is Asia is so far offering two candidates, and neither one is a household name. Sri Lanka is proposing veteran diplomat Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, a former U.N. under-secretary for Disarmament, having dropped an earlier plan to propose former Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando.

Dhanapala was fielded in a bid to win China's support, seen as crucial for an Asian candidate. Dhanapala speaks fluent Chinese, and hopes to be acceptable to the Americans having served as Sri Lanka's ambassador to Washington. He currently runs Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat, trying -- with little success -- to revive the stalled peace process with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Thailand has already secured the support of the 10-nation ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) group for its recently promoted Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, educated at Harvard Law School.

Surakiart, a youthful 46, had hoped to secure the support of all 56 Asian nations, a crucial voting bloc at the United Nations, but Iran has already proposed its outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, and India may offer U.N. under-secretary general for Public Information, Shashi Tharoor.

Moreover, there is a groundswell of grumbling that Thailand is getting greedy, after providing the last head of the World Trade Organization, and now Supachai Panitchpakdi has become secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, a job that almost makes him the U.N. deputy secretary-general.

A Thai secretary-general as well would widely be seen as too much. There is also a question whether his command of French is sufficient -- and Paris has a tradition of rallying French-speaking nations to block a non-French speaker.

But Surakiart has been campaigning hard for months, making the rounds of Asian capitals and international meetings. After last week's Doha meeting of the G-77, he claimed to have pledges of support from five Gulf Arab states and four central Asian countries.

"I don't want to go through the headcounts as I haven't got support from the majority of countries as yet," he told reporters. "Let's say I have a very good emergence of support."

The lackluster appeal of these two candidates has stirred speculation Singapore might be prepared to field one of its veteran retired diplomats, like Ambassador Tommy Ko who currently runs a think tank, or former Ambassador to the United Nations Kishore Mahbubani, now running Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew school of public policy. But either man would be a very late entrant, since as an ASEAN country Singapore is at least nominally committed to Surakiart unless it become clear he has no chance.

There have so far been seven men elected to be secretary-general, starting with Norway's Trygve Lie from 1946 to 1953. He was followed by Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1962.

Then came Burma's U Thant, until 1972, and then Austria's Kurt Waldheim until 1981, and Peru's Javier Perez de Cuellar until 1991, when he was followed for a single five-year term by Egypt's Boutros-Boutros Ghali. Blocked by the United States from a second term, it was reckoned Africa's turn was not quite complete, so Kofi Annan of Ghana took over.

That makes three Europeans, two Africans and only one Asian and one Latin American. So far, there has been no secretary-general from North America (and Canada could qualify) nor from Oceania.

But nor has there been a secretary-general from Eastern Europe or from the old Soviet bloc, and so Asian diplomats fear the surprise coming of what they call "a stealth candidate" with strong American backing, and a promise that current efforts in the U.S. Congress to cut U.N. funding would be dropped if a pro-American figure like Poland's Kwasniewski were elected.

Asian officials are claiming Eastern Europe is "not really a region" and that the 22 countries of the region, which include Bulgaria and Georgia and Ukraine, are either members of the European Union and NATO or trying to join.

Kwasniewski has told the Polish media he might consider the job, but only if the United Nations goes through far-reaching reforms.

"Then it would be an interesting challenge. But if the United Nations functions as it does now, I am completely unsuitable for such a role," he said.

And there may be other candidates. There has been recurrent speculation that former President Bill Clinton would like to be asked, but even if the Bush administration agreed to back a political rival, France would be likely to veto any American.

Chile's outgoing President Ricardo Lagos has discreetly floated his own name, but a Latin American had the job too recently. And if an absolute breakdown and deadlock occurs, Sweden can always offer its popular Ambassador to the United States, Jan Eliason, just elected to be president of the General assembly, for the forthcoming 60th session.

It is in any event an almost impossible job, with very different sets of bosses in the Security Council (which recommends a candidate) and in the General Assembly (which actually elects him). As Annan once described the job: "I am a cheerleader, I am a promoter, I am a salesman, I am a debt collector, I am a father confessor and there are other aspects I still have to discover."

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