Former foreign minister Alexander Downer appears to have missed out on being suddenly catapulted into the job of Commonwealth Secretary-general.
The global grouping's leaders, meeting in Malta on Friday, got over differences and appointed a woman to the post for the first time.
Three candidates, two from the Caribbean and one from Africa, had been officially put up for the role to replace Kamalesh Sharma, who has served for eight years.
But division over which one to choose threatened to cause friction and divide leaders.
There had been speculation Mr Downer - who is now Australia's High Commissioner in London - had been put forward as a "compromise candidate" to avoid the friction.
But in a fraught and extended closed executive meeting on Friday representatives of 53 Commonwealth countries came to a consensus and appointed Baroness Patricia Scotland, a former Labour minister and attorney-general in the UK with dual Dominican and British citizenship.
Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that the Conservative Party had backed Mr Downer as an alternative to the Labour peer.
When contacted by News Corp, Mr Downer denied he had put his hand up for the job but declined to comment on whether his candidature had been raised for him by supporters.
Mr Downer has been in Malta in recent days standing in for Julie Bishop at a meeting of CHOGM foreign ministers.
Britain's Press Association reported on Friday that Mr Downer had been touted as a compromise choice if no clear leader emerged from the Caribbean or Africa but he is thought to have failed to attract enough support.
The two official candidates who missed out on the job were Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua's Ambassador to Washington, and a second female candidate, Botswana's Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba, who has been Deputy Secretary-general of the Commonwealth.
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