Diplomats:Ex-Portuguese minister tops poll for next UN chief

The 15 council members decided not to reveal the results of their voting to encourage, ''discourage, or express no opinion about the 12 candidates — unlike the informal straw polls 10 years ago, which were made public and led to Ban's election to the world's top diplomatic post.

Guterres, who was Portugal's center-left Socialist prime minister from 1995-2002 and served as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees until the end of last year, received 12 "encourage" votes and three "no opinion" votes, the diplomats said.

The three other candidates at the bottom of the list were Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, the U.N. official who played a key role in shaping last December's historic agreement to fight climate change, former Moldovan Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman and Montenegro's Foreign Minister Igor Luksic, they said.

According to the U.N. Charter, the secretary-general is chosen by the 193-member General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council.

In the final straw poll in early October 2006, Ban received 14 "encourage" votes, 1 "no opinion" and no "discourage" vote, and days later the Security Council nominated the former South Korean foreign minister by acclamation to succeed Annan.