Two women lead the race to be next UN secretary-general

Two women have emerged as frontrunners to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations from 1 January 2027 after António Guterres ends his second term this year.

Rebeca Grynspan, the Costa Rican who now heads the UN’s trade body Unctad, came top out of seven candidates in the first informal and confidential straw poll on Thursday, 30 July, which gauged the opinions of the 15 members of the Security Council.

Carolyn Allison Rodrigues-Birkett, the former foreign minister of Guyana and now its ambassador to the UN in New York, came second.

Argentinian Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), came third, followed by former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, former Senegalese president Macky Sall, former foreign minister of Ecuador María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, and lastly Ugandan Olarra Otunnu, a former under secretary-general of the UN and former Ugandan ambassador to the UN.

SA backs a woman as UN boss

Pretoria seems happy with the good performance of Grynspan and Rodrigues-Birkett as it believes that the UN needs its first woman secretary-general in its 81 years of existence, and it also likes the politics and the competence of the two women.

Although the straw poll was held in camera, the results were immediately and widely leaked. They showed that Grynspan got 10 “encourages”, one “discourage” and four “no opinions.” Rodrigues-Birkett got nine encourages, two discourages and four no opinions. Grossi’s tally was 7, 2, 6. Bachelet’s was 6, 5, 4. Sall’s was 6,7,2. Garcés got 5, 2 and 8 and Otunnu 2,5 and 8.

The two African candidates may have been knocked out of the running. Sall has been mounting a strong campaign but getting more discourages than encourages indicated strong resistance to him. Otunnu entered the race very late and had not yet had a chance to lobby with UN members, as the other candidates did.

Neither African candidate was backed by the African Union as African countries are mostly of the opinion that, under the UN’s informal regional rotation system, it is now the turn of the Latin American and Caribbean group of countries.

Pretoria leans towards Unctad head

Pretoria seems to like Grynspan in part because, as head of Unctad, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, she has favoured developing countries. She is also considered to be highly principled and just left of centre but not too far left.

Her country, Costa Rica, has had a good track record. Though its government has recently swung conservative, it is not far right.

But there is concern that the single discourage she received may have come from one of the five permanent members of the Security Council (the P5) – that would amount to a veto and would knock her out of the race.

There is the same concern about the two discourages against Rodrigues-Birkett.

Daily Maverick heard Pretoria also likes Rodrigues-Birkett because it feels that when her country, Guyana, was on the Security Council recently, she did really well and maintained a principled position under heavy pressure on very difficult issues. She stood her ground without being openly aggressive towards the P5, which might help her chances of being elected.

Pretoria also likes Bachelet, but feels that her fourth place in the straw poll, with five discourages against her, indicates she may not have a chance.

Pretoria also suspects that at least two permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, oppose her because she criticised them when she was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights between 2018 and 2022. Her age may also count against her as she turns 75 in September. She was president of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018.

Pretoria suspects the US could be backing Grossi because he is Argentinian and US President Donald Trump likes his fellow right-wing populist, Argentine President Javier Milei.

The US could have been responsible for Grynspan’s one discourage vote, which would probably doom her candidacy.

Pretoria suggests it could live with Grossi. As a non-member of the Security Council, South Africa would basically have to accept whomever the council agrees to. That is largely true for all UN members not on the council.

August poll

The UN General Assembly, which includes all UN members, will in the end vote, by simple majority, to elect the next secretary-general, but since the P5 have veto powers, the hands of other members are tied. Only if offered a completely unacceptable candidate might they try to raise a groundswell of resistance to the person.

A second straw poll will have to be held, likely in August. This time it is likely that the ballots for the five permanent members of the Security Council will be coloured differently from those of the 10 non-permanent elected members.

That would indicate immediately to all if any of the candidates are opposed by one or more permanent members and would effectively knock them out of the race.

A few other candidates are believed to be waiting in the wings to enter the race if the Security Council cannot agree on any of the current seven. One of those is believed to be deputy UN secretary-general Amina Mohammed, a Nigerian, though she has not confirmed that. DM