UNITED NATIONS (AP) - South Korea's foreign minister cemented his position as the near-certain successor to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on yesterday, the only one of six candidates to escape a veto in an informal Security Council ballot.

The Security Council was expected to hold a formal vote to pick the eighth secretary-general in the United Nations' 60-year history on Oct. 9, making Ban Ki-Moon's appointment almost assured. The 192-nation General Assembly must approve the council's recommendation, and traditionally does so without protest.

"It is quite clear that from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-Moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said.

While the informal poll is nonbinding and the final vote could be different, diplomats and candidates left little doubt that Ban would win. Soon after the results became known, India's Shashi Tharoor, the U.N. undersecretary-general for public information, announced he was leaving the race even though he placed second to Ban in all four of the informal polls.

"It is a great honor and a huge responsibility to be secretary-general, and I wish Mr. Ban every success in that task," Tharoor said.

If Ban does indeed win the race, his selection will have been marked by unprecedented speed, consensus and calm. In the past, U.N. chiefs have often been elected as time runs out, after heated negotiations and numerous rounds of voting.

Annan, who steps down on Dec. 31, was himself a compromise candidate in 1996 who emerged late and only after the United States blocked Boutros Boutros-Ghali's bid for a second five-year term. Annan's example also shows how unpredictable the process can be: during informal polling at the time, France consistently opposed him before changing its vote at the last minute.

Ban would take the helm of an organization with some 92,000 peacekeepers around the world, a $2 billion annual operating budget and programs to fight hunger, assist refugees and slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The next secretary-general will also be charged with improving the world body's image, which has been battered by sexual abuse by some peacekeepers, allegations of corruption, and the belief that it must be reformed to reflect the world of 2006, not the post-World War II era when it was created.

Ban will have to counter widely held perceptions that he lacks charisma and is too closely tied to the United States. He says that, if elected, he will focus on his role as the world's top diplomat and leave the U.N.'s day-to-day operations primarily to a deputy.

In yesterday's poll, the 15 council nations checked one of three boxes for each candidate in the secret ballot: "Encourage," "discourage," and "no opinion." For the first time, the five permanent members of the council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - were given blue ballots to show the candidates if they could escape a veto.