For the past few months, members of the United Nations Security Council have been holding a series of secret informal polls.
Now, they've revealed their hand.
Vitaly Churkin is Russia's Ambassador to the UN.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen, you are witnessing I think an historic scene. I don't know if it has ever been done this way in the history of the United Nations before. As you know, we have conducted our sixth straw poll and this has been a very important process of selecting the next secretary general and I think we've treated it with great responsibility. After our sixth straw poll, we have a clear favourite and his name is Antonio Guterres."
Many of the candidates appeared in a televised debate to make their pitch, including the former Portuguese prime minister.
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"We badly need at this moment two things: leadership and values. The values that our societies that are all becoming multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural need in order to foster inclusion, cohesion, to make people feel they belong, to value diversity and to confront and defeat political populism, xenophobia, racism and violent extremism. And I believe those values are the values I've served all my life."
Antonio Guterres twice served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
In that role, he sometimes felt the need to criticise Australia's asylum policies, including the controversial boat turn back policy which now has bipartisan support.
In 2012, he told the ABC the turn back policy was a breach of the UN Refugee Convention.
"We don't think that pushbacks are a solution and we think that that is clearly a violation in relation to the 1951 Convention."
The United States Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, says his past UN experience helped make him the stand out candidate.
"In the end there was just a candidate whose experience, vision and versatility across a range of areas proved compelling."
Seven of the candidates were women, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, and there was a push for a woman to be appointed to the job or a candidate from Eastern Europe.
Jean Krasno is from the "Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary General".
"We are extremely disappointed. I think actually it is more devastating than the media has been saying. It's depressing. The women candidates we were listening to, Antonio Guterres we were listening to, Samantha Power talking about his qualities. The other women, the other seven women who were candidates had outstanding equal qualities. The values that they stood for are the same values that Antonio Guterres was mentioning and so it should have been a woman."
A formal vote will take place at the UN headquarters in New York to recommend Mr Guterres to the UN General Assembly, which must approve his nomination for it to take effect.
