UNITED NATIONS : Antonio Guterres, Portugal's former prime minister who was the UN's refugee chief for 10 years, took the lead in the first straw poll vote on Thursday to pick the next UN secretary-general, diplomats said. Slovenia's former president Danilo Turk came second in the secret vote by the UN Security Council to choose a successor to Ban Ki-moon. "Guterres is the man to beat," a Security Council diplomat told AFP. "He has done very well."

The 15 ambassadors including those from the powerful permanent five -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- each rated the candidates with ballots marked "encourage," "discourage" or "no opinion." Guterres won the top score of 12 "encourage" votes, while Turk was close behind with 11 encouragements, according to diplomats.  Turk received two "discourage" votes.

Council members are expected to meet again, possibly as early as next week, for a second round of straw polls, with a final nominee expected to emerge by October.

There are currently 12 candidates in the race, six of them women, but diplomats said some were expected to withdraw following the result of the first round. One candidate received 11 "discourage" votes from the council. Fluent in several languages, the 67-year-old Guterres impressed UN diplomats when he appeared at the first-ever public hearings for candidates in April. "We think the results reflect very much the performance in the hearings," said a council diplomat.

Turk, 64, was Slovenia's president from 2007 to 2012 and also served as the country's first UN ambassador in 1992. After his posting as Ljubljana's envoy, he was appointed UN assistant secretary-general for political affairs, a post he held until 2005 before returning to Slovenia, where he taught law. Among the other contenders were Argentina's Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and New Zealand's ex-prime minister Helen Clark.