NZ will gather support for McKinnon, says Clark

Prime Minister Helen Clark said today she would rally support for Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon when he seeks a second term at next month's summit meeting.

In a surprise move reported to have the backing of South Africa, Sri Lanka has named its former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar as a candidate to challenge Mr McKinnon.

Helen Clark, who will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (Chogm) in Nigeria which opens on December 5, said it was a very late candidature.

"It is not the way things are usually done in the Commonwealth," she said through a spokeswoman.

"New Zealand is strongly supportive of Don McKinnon, he has a very good track record in serving the Commonwealth and we will continue to seek support for him for a second term."

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff told NZPA he was confident Mr McKinnon remained well placed to secure a second four-year term.

He said the Sri Lankan challenger was 75, and if successful would be 79 at the end of a term in office.

"It's a little unusual in that regard, although he is a long-standing former foreign minister and quite well known in the Commonwealth," he said.

"He's not a candidate you would ignore and say has absolutely no prospect."

The controversy over Zimbabwe's exclusion from the 54-member Commonwealth's annual summit has been linked with the challenge but Mr Goff considered Mr McKinnon had been impartial.

"He has played a straight bat on that. There are strong views on either side of the issue," he said.

Mr McKinnon, a former New Zealand foreign minister, said the challenge was "no real surprise" and he did not think it would provoke a split at Chogm.

"This was buzzing around a couple of months ago and we thought it had disappeared," he said on National Radio.

"Clearly it's surfaced again... you can't be in this job for nearly four years, as I have, without probably upsetting a few people."

Mr McKinnon said he did not detect a division in the Commonwealth over the position of secretary-general.

"There's no sign of it... the support I have from the Pacific, from the Caribbean, from most of Asia and a number of African leaders who have rung me in the last few weeks suggests to me it is not a split," he said.

A Reuters report from Johannesburg quoted diplomats as saying South Africa supported the challenge and could be behind it.

Zimbabwe was considered to be the issue provoking a possible split.

That country's leader, President Robert Mugabe, has not been invited because he has been charged with rigging his re-election and Zimbabwe is under suspension.

Several African countries sought, and failed, to reverse that situation.

- NZPA