UNITED NATIONS — Portugal’s former prime minister Antonio Guterres, who is virtually certain to be the next U.N. secretary-general, says he wants to be “an honest broker, a bridge-builder and someone who tries to create conditions for consensus.”

The veteran politician and diplomat, who won unanimous backing from the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, said in an interview with The Associated Press and two other news organizations during his campaign that if he got the job his aim would be to work with all countries to help solve the myriad problems on the global agenda.

The Security Council is scheduled to meet behind closed doors Thursday morning for a formal vote on Guterres’ candidacy. Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, expressed hope that the council will recommend Guterres by “acclamation” to the 193-member General Assembly, which must approve a successor to Ban Ki-moon, whose second five-year term ends Dec. 31.

Guterres topped all six informal polls in the council after receiving high marks from almost every diplomat for his performance in the first-ever question-and-answer sessions for candidates in the General Assembly. He was the only candidate of the 10 in the race to receive no “discourage” votes in Wednesday’s poll, which was the first to use colored ballots to distinguish the votes of the five veto-wielding permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

The result disappointed campaigners for a woman or East European to be the world’s top diplomat for the first time.

Guterres will almost certainly select a woman as deputy secretary-general and he said in the interview that one of the things that is “crucial” at the male-dominated United Nations is “to have gender parity.”

He said that his 10 years as the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, which ended in December, were “excellent preparation” for a secretary-general who needs to be an honest broker and be seen by countries as independent in order to promote consensus and overcome crises.