UN Secretary-General Race Stalls as Candidates Face Vetoes

AFP

A previous session of the UN General Assembly.

The race to select the United Nations’ next secretary-general remains deadlocked, with none of the seven candidates in an informal Security Council ballot securing the support of all five permanent members.

Leading contenders include former Costa Rican Vice-President Rebeca Grynspan, Guyana’s representative Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi.

However, each has faced opposition from at least two permanent members of the Security Council, all of whom hold veto power.

No woman has ever served as UN secretary-general. The next informal ballot to select a successor to António Guterres is scheduled to take place next week.

According to the AFP, Friday's vote was the first time in the anonymous informal polling that Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States used coloured straws to indicate their vetoes, while the Security Council's 10 elected members continued to use plain markers.

Each of the 15 Security Council members must anonymously assign each candidate one of three labels: "encourage," "discourage," or "no opinion."

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, one of the leading contenders in the race to become the next UN Secretary-General, received the highest number of “encourage” votes in the latest informal Security Council poll, but also attracted five “discourage” votes, including two from permanent members.

US media reports suggest that Washington opposes all seven candidates currently in the race.

The US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, declined to comment on the reports. Speaking on Friday, he said: “We have always said we just simply need the best.”

Asked about the possibility of additional candidates entering the race, Waltz said countries were within their sovereign rights to nominate more contenders.

Diplomats have identified several potential entrants, including Nickolay Mladenov, the High Representative for Gaza under the US-backed Board of Peace, and Lana Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Feridun Hadi Sinirlioglu of Türkiye, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), has also been mentioned as a possible candidate.

Grynspan recorded the strongest average performance across the first five rounds of informal polling and again topped Friday’s vote, despite receiving two votes against her from permanent Security Council members.

The other candidates are former Guyanese foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett; Rafael Grossi of Argentina, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Senegal’s Macky Sall; Ecuador’s Ivonne A-Baki and Maria Fernanda Espinosa; and Uganda’s Olara Otunnu.

The outgoing Secretary-General, António Guterres of Portugal, is due to complete his second five-year term on 31 December 2026.

To advance, a candidate must secure at least nine votes from the 15-member Security Council and avoid a veto from any of its five permanent members. The permanent powers remain divided over the selection process. Once a candidate clears these hurdles, their nomination is submitted to the UN General Assembly for confirmation.

The Security Council’s informal straw-poll system was introduced in the early 1980s to help resolve a deadlock between two candidates who had faced vetoes. The mechanism has continued in various forms, despite criticism from countries that argue the process lacks transparency.

By convention, the UN’s top post rotates among the world’s regions. Under this principle, Latin America is expected to have the opportunity to provide the next Secretary-General, although several candidates from the region are competing with contenders from Africa, including Sall and Otunnu.



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