The race to succeed United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres continues under the spotlight at the organization’s headquarters this week, as candidates answer questions about their qualifications for the job in front of member states and civil society organizations.
Jaunty social media video posted in recent days shows these known interactive conversation April 21 and April 22 as the center of transparency and good governance. Four candidates, all officially appointed and at least one member state, will be shown for three hours each in live streaming events. In an introductory video, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock describes the process as “possibly the toughest job interview in the world,” promising that it will be “fun.”
Most member states sent their UN ambassadors to the debates, and candidates fielded questions from the full council in a room that seats 700 people. Topics ranged from technical issues to substantive topics such as impartiality and multilingualism.
But will these talks help decide who will take the helm of the UN as its 10th secretary general next January? The tradition began in 2016 with high hopes: At the end of the first dialogue that year, the President of the General Assembly at the time Mogens Lykketoft. he told reporters“We have set a new level of transparency and participation in the selection process, but it has the potential to affect the final result of the Secretary General’s selection.”
Among those who want to be secretary general, three candidates have been in the election for several months. Rafael Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who he headed the International Atomic Energy Agency for six years and has the largest profile of the United Nations system, it is widely considered a front runner.
Grossi’s conversation took place on Tuesday. In a notable moment, he used French to answer a question posed by the European Union in English, in a possible endorsement of France’s veto power. Before the talks, a diplomat said that France expects the candidates for the secretary general to speak French when they visit Paris in their campaign rounds in the capitals of the world.
Still, more competitors may jump into the fray. One diplomat observed that some may be “taking their time to avoid too much scrutiny.” The most optimistic voices think that these other announcements will come in May or June, with their own interactive talks. Pessimists suggest that a dark horse chosen by the major powers will emerge shortly before the unofficial deadline to choose the next secretary general in October.
Another diplomat familiar with the inner workings of the process said they expected “October Surprise,’ but in September.” (Several officials spoke privately with Foreign Policyunder normal diplomatic rules, at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 17.)
The United Nations Charter does not elaborate on the selection process, stating only that the secretary-general will be appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. That effectively hands the Security Council monopoly over the final decision as long as it names one candidate.
The United States will undoubtedly have a large voice in the final selection, but not a free hand. Any candidate first needs to survive secret Security Council elections, expected to begin in July, with the support of at least nine members, including all five permanent veto-wielding members: China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States.
The Hardest Job in the Worldnew podcast from Foreign Policy and the United Nations Foundation, examines what kind of leader the world organization needs at this critical time and how the next secretary-general will be chosen. Take a look trailer.
There is an example of a successful sleeper candidate: In 1981, a veto battle within the Security Council over two candidates went on for 16 rounds, paralyzing the race for secretary general. Finally, council members asked both candidates to withdraw and touch the Peruvian diplomat Javier Pérez de Cuellar as secretary general. However, that was decades before 2015 amendment that, among other things, required candidates to be officially nominated by a member state.
Subsequent rounds of voting within the Security Council apply color votes indicating the vote of a permanent member. The votes include three categories for each candidate: “encourage,” “disappoint,” and “no opinion.” Guterres, widely seen as a front-runner in 2016, went through six rounds of ballots starting in July and won the council’s nomination on October 5.
Although the results of the ballot should be secret, the fact that the election is taking place is not. Council members emerge to announce whether they have made a final decision in a process that is often contested papal meeting. (Voting results are often leaked shortly afterwards.)
If the Security Council makes an unpopular nomination, then the General Assembly can take the unprecedented step of rejecting that candidate in a secret ballot of the 193 member states. One obstacle to such an outcome is the divergent interests of the five permanent members, who are unlikely to join an unusual candidate after debating the candidates for a long time.
It’s easy to imagine the topic coming up, for example, when US President Donald Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing next month. And the Trump administration may try to step up financial problems that have caused the United Nations in talks with members of the Security Council. In Trump’s second term, the United States suspension almost all payments to the United Nations.
Washington has nearly $2 billion in regular budget arrears, which funds administrative costs—including $767 million for this year, which was due in February. Combined with the lack of US payments towards the peacekeeping budget, the total owed is around $4 billion.
“Our budget officials said in March that the United States contributed about 95 percent of the United Nations’ debt,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, confirmed in an email to. Foreign Policy mid April.
In February, Washington made a payment of 160 million dollars allocated to the regular budget. At the time, Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, put the focus of “America First” on this step on the basis of Trump. In an interview with Fox News, Waltz said, “There are times when the United Nations has been a great support for America’s foreign policy and goals, but there are also times when it works against us … You’ve become bloated. You’ve become a copycat.”
Although there are no directives that expressly prevent a permanent member from appointing one of its nationals, it is one of the unwritten rules of the process. That’s worth considering, given Trump’s record of appointing close allies—and even himself– for other important positions. In reality, Security Council polls have been in favor of a secretary-general from a centrist party that is considered neutral.
Local politics is another challenge for competitors. Two of the four candidates in this week’s debates are not supported by their countries, which has caused consternation. Michelle Bachelet, who was the first to take the stage on April 21, has served twice as president of Chile—the only woman to hold that office. But when a new conservative government took power in Santiago last month, it prevailed he withdrew the country’s nomination for Bachelet, who is a member of the Chilean Socialist Party. He continues to be supported by Brazil and Mexico.
At the same time, the former President of Senegal Macky Sall, who entered the race late and was the only African candidate, was nominated by Burundi. A controversial power shift in 2024 makes it unlikely that he won’t get support from his country’s current government; president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was held pretrial detention for a social media post up to 10 days before the election that brought him to power.
Three candidates appearing this week are from South America, including Bachelet, Grossi, and former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, an economist and head of the United Nations Trade and Development Organization. He took a leave of absence from his role at the beginning of April to focus on his campaign.
There is a widespread feeling among UN diplomats that the next secretary-general should come from Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the five regional groups in the United Nations (This regional rotation is another unwritten rule, along with the expectation that the secretary-general will serve two consecutive terms of five years.) Four secretaries-general have come from the Western European community and other countries with two groups in Asia and the Pacific. Only one Latin American candidate, Pérez de Cuéllar, has finally taken the helm of the United Nations.
Some of the capitals of Eastern Europe are pushing for a secretary-general from their region, which would be the first—something they have wanted for more than a decade. However, they have not fielded a candidate so far. Then, as now, there is no Eastern European country that will not face a possible veto by Russia or the United States.
In September, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted The resolution “deeply regrets that no woman has ever held the post of Secretary-General,” adding that it “encourages Member States to seriously consider nominating women as candidates.” This was a common response before Guterres was elected a decade ago—but he remained at the forefront throughout the 2016 selection process.
It may be too early to tell if the talks will play a supporting role this year. The tradition is still new in the 80-year history of the United Nations. Some diplomats want more radical reforms—such as the publication of color-coded referendum results or the submission of more than one candidate by the Security Council so that the General Assembly has more than an up or down vote. Right now, that’s off the table.
However, the participatory dialogue gives the 178 member states that are not in the Security Council a chance to express their preferences before voting begins, which could avoid a historic defeat of a candidate in the fall. It’s not like the old days, when a small field of candidates for secretary general was contested by one competitor in the back rooms of the Security Council. But maybe not so different.
