Global Policy Forum

By Neil McFarquhar

"Icelandic Pancakes Folded with Jam of Mixed Berries and Whipped Cream" read the stylish calligraphy on a little white card atop the dessert buffet in the United Nations Delegates Dining Room. Iceland is locked in a tight race against Austria and Turkey for two rotating seats on the Security Council that are reserved for the mostly European bloc, and the luncheon spread last week was part of its charm offensive. The lobbying effort gained added urgency in tandem with daily headlines trumpeting Iceland's bankruptcy.Would two buffet tables groaning with delicacies exclusively from Iceland persuade any of the 192 member states that can vote this Friday that Iceland deserves their support? "Well, they have to try to convince people with pancakes because they don't have any money left," said one European diplomat walking past.

Electric moments have become rarer around the United Nations Secretariat in recent years, but a hotly contested Security Council vote still creates buzz. Even as members grumble about the declining relevancy of a Security Council designed circa World War II, more and more nations seek to wield the influence gained by winning a seat at the Council's iconic horseshoe-shaped table. "It is one of the major plum goals for foreign policy in any country," said Colin Keating, a former New Zealand ambassador who runs Security Council Report, a nonprofit organization that tracks the body. "It is a place of real power; it is the only international institution that exists that has the legal power by majority vote to compel the international community to do something."

Regions try to create consensus around one candidate — it is called a "clean slate" — to avoid a bruising vote. Uganda has been anointed for the Africa seat this year, and Mexico for Latin America. A battle is occurring in Asia, with Iran challenging Japan. Iran argues that it deserves the spot, having not been on the Council since 1956, while Japan has served nine times, the last ending in 2006. But diplomats say that Iran is such a long shot that it might withdraw. They note the country's standoff with the Security Council over the nuclear issue, with three rounds of sanctions against it. Nobody seeks to repeat the experience with Rwanda in the early 1990s, when it used its seat to hinder resolutions aimed at the violence there.

The intention to win a seat is often announced a decade in advance. It is a bit like applying for a prestigious college: you have to prove you are well rounded. At the United Nations, that means first showing active interest in peace and security issues. (Turkey contributes manpower peacekeeping operations in four countries.). Second, you must show you are working to improve the environment and alleviate poverty. (Iceland's literature highlights pictures of third world students in its geothermal training program.) Finally, throwing a good party certainly does not hurt. (Austria hosted a special United Nations concert at Carnegie Hall featuring the Vienna Philharmonic and has planned a bash at the Metropolitan Club on the eve of the vote.)

Events can create turbulence around the most carefully choreographed campaigns, however. Witness Iceland. It joined the United Nations in 1946, but decided only in 1998 to join the rotation of the other Nordic states on the Security Council. In summarizing the pitch he made personally to 181 ambassadors, Ambassador Hjalmar W. Hannesson does not edit out the irony created by broken banks. "We had this economic security that we didn't have before," he said in an interview. "As we crept up the ladder of well-to-do countries, we felt more and more that it was an obligation to serve others in the Security Council."A glass bowl on the table in front of him held one of Iceland's campaign geegaws: little tin mint boxes. They say "Iceland First Time Candidate to the Security Council" over a world map showing the island as a little red dot at its center. The financial meltdown, however, has rendered Iceland in a different kind of red ink. The telephone line between New York and Reykjavik, the capital, has been burned up with the Foreign Ministry asking the mission whether the financial mess will derail Iceland's candidacy, said Kristin Arnadottir, the Icelandic diplomat running the campaign. "It is being discussed between us and the Nordics if it has an impact," Ms. Arnadottir said. They are unsure whether it will create empathy or doubts. "It is not only Iceland that is going through economic turmoil, it is the rest of the Western world."

The general opinion among diplomatic handicappers is that it may affect a few votes at the margin, but that even a few votes may influence a tight race. One African ambassador said Iceland was trying so hard to reassure everyone that it risked leaving the impression that something was really amiss. "They are making too much out of it; none of us understand what is going on," he said, speaking anonymously because the voting is a delicate issue. Of course, the other candidates have issues, too. Austria's anti-immigrant, far-right parties won almost a third of the vote in September parliamentary elections. Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter tries to counter any doubts by noting that Austria has a historical commitment to the United Nations, hosting important organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency and serving as a bridge between combative nations since the cold war. Turkey last held a Security Council seat in 1961, sensing that the Turkish-Greek fight over divided Cyprus since 1974 would block its gaining a seat. Clashes with Kurdish separatists prompted Turkey to bomb inside Iraq last week. Ambassador Baki Ilkin argues that Turkey's time is due and that its geographic position at the crossroads between the turbulent Middle East, the turbulent Caucasus and the turbulent Balkans makes it ideal to lend regional sensitivities to key Council deliberations.

Every country has an equal vote, so none are considered too small to lobby. Nauru and Tuvalu and Palau pull the same weight as the five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France. (They never have to run.) "The powerful Palau block!" exclaimed Stuart Beck, an American lawyer who serves as Palau's United Nations ambassador. "At times like this our vote has value, so you are able to engage," he said, noting that all three candidates were helping push a resolution of his on combating climate change. "They are more conscious of our needs."Both Reykjavik and Vienna sent envoys across the South Pacific. Ankara invited the Pacific islanders to a summit, and also hosted separate Caribbean and African summits.

Rumors of payoffs are rife, but no one can site a specific example. All candidates say that they have always wanted to do more in, say, Africa — Turkey announced that it planned to open 10 new embassies there — and the timing of significant boosts in their aid budgets are a long-term dream not linked to any vote. Since the votes are secret, there is no insurance that a direct payoff would work. It takes two-thirds of the votes of members present to win a seat. The vote itself is a bit of a beauty contest, with the first-round number, particularly, read as a brutally stark reflection of any country's standing in the international arena. "It's true: I think we want to show that the standing of our country is excellent and hopefully superior to the others," Ambassador Pfanzelter said.