Helen Clark has congratulated Portugal's Antonio Guterres as the "clear winner" in the selection for next United Nations Secretary-General.
RNZ reports the former Portuguese prime minister is poised to take up the role after none of the five UN Security Council veto powers voted against him in a sixth secret ballot, diplomats said.
Helen Clark ended up fifth overall but three of the permanent Security Council members voted against her, effectively vetoing her selection.
The 15-member Security Council cast secret ballots for each of the 10 candidates with the choices of encourage, discourage or no opinion. Mr Guterres received 13 encourage votes and two no opinion votes. Miss Clark had six encourage, eight discourage and one no opinion.
"Today after our sixth straw poll we have a clear favourite and his name is Antonio Guterres," Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters with his 14 council colleagues standing behind him.
"We have decided to go to a formal vote tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, and we hope it can be done by acclamation," said Mr Churkin, who is council president for October.