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PM not suprised over dirty tactics in campaign for top UN job

18:09 pm on 25 May 2016

The Prime Minister says Helen Clark's campaign to be United Nations (UN) secretary-general has got a little bit dirty, but he's not surprised.

The international magazine Foreign Policy has run a feature on Ms Clark's tenure as the leader of the United Nations Development Programme saying she has "left a trail of embittered peers and subordinates" after carrying out large-scale restructuring.

But Prime Minister John Key said Ms Clark was clearly the front-runner for the job and the article showed others didn't want her to win.

The article also suggests Ms Clark's managers drove a UN employee out of her job for being involved in a report that criticised the agency's inaction during the Sri Lankan civil war.