Some weeks ago, the list of candidates to succeed António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres when he finishes his second term as Secretary General next December 31 looked promising and competitive.
Three women and two men were in the race: the former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet; the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi -whose candidacy was endorsed by the Government of Argentina; Rebeca Grynspan, former Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) nominated by the Government of Costa Rica; the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 2017 to 2025, Virginia Gamba from Argentina, nominated by the Maldives Islands; and the former President of Senegal, Macky Sall, whose candidacy was endorsed by Burundi.
Compare this scenario to 2016, when 10 candidates participated, including Bulgaria’s Irina Bokova, Director General of the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organizations (UNESCO); New Zealand’s Helen Clark, former administrator of the United Nations Program for Development (UNDP); Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva, European Commission Vice President for Budget and Human Resources; Moldova’s Nathalie Gherman, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs; Serbia’s Vuk Jeremić, President of the Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development and former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Macedonia’s Srgjan Kerim, Former Foreign Minister and former President of the United Nations General Assembly; Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajčák, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs; Argentina’s Susana Malcorra, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Slovakia’s Danilo Türk, Chair of the Global Fairness Initiative and former President of Slovenia; and Portugal’s Antonio Guterres, Former UN High Commissioner for Refugees and former Prime Minister of Portugal. As it is known, Guterres got the job despite heavy criticism against the UN Security Council for choosing a man even though the process was intended to have a woman elected for the first time.
Well, going back to the former five candidates to succeed Guterres in the election process that will take place in the weeks and months to come, it seems besides the four Latin Americans and the African candidacies, no one else is interested. In fact, the current President of the UN General Assembly, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock has urged submission of candidates and strongly suggested nominating women to break the trend of nine consecutive male leaders. The nominations are being closed on April 1 (today).
But before going on, it is important to see how the situation has changed and why of the five former candidates, there are only two on the run. To start with, the Maldives has withdrawn its nomination of Virginia Gamba for UN secretary-general, and Chile has backed out of its nomination of Michelle Bachelet, because the new Government of José Antonio Kast decline to support her, for ideological and political reasons -in fact, several republicans and right win American politicians celebrated Kast’s decision, by arguing Bachelet is a communist. Although Bachelet said she would stay on the run, without the support of Chile her chances have dramatically diminished. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said the country would still support her, but it is hard to imagine Mexico could use financial and diplomatic resources that normally would be reserve for a Mexican not a Chilean candidate.
With Gamba and Bachelet out of the picture, that would effectively leave only one woman, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan on the ballot amid a clamor for a woman to lead the United Nations. It also narrows the field of candidates from five to three, the other two being men. Of the two men, however, Macky Sall’s candidacy faces serious problems because his name was not supported by the African Union. Instead his candidacy was not even submitted by Senegal but by Burundi because Senegal’s new government, which accuses him of concealing public debt and repressing political opponents, plus numerous acts of corruption, is not endorsing him. Clearly Macky Sall lacks the most fundamental moral authority for the job, which is why the next Secretary General may be a Latin American.
Yet it will not be easy for Grynspan to become the first woman to lead the United Nations. Of course, she has a great deal of experience on trade and development issues and had an extraordinary diplomatic achievement at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War when she bridged the export of 33 billion tons of grains. Her vision statement seems sensitive about conflicts, development and peace, but she lacks experience in peacekeeping operations, nuclear crisis, and a large etcetera. One may argue UNCTAD is not the most visible spot at the United Nations System, but still she may get the support of developing countries that constitute most UN members. She still needs to convince the permanent members of UN Security Council though.
To many, Grossi may be the guy for the job since he has kept political visibility due to the numerous international conflicts where nuclear energy is involved, including the Russia-Ukraine War and more recently the military attacks by Israel and US forces against nuclear facilities in Iran. Grossi, knowing that he needs to convince the UN members that he can promote gender parity, in his vision statement showed that under his tenure, the IAEA has reached the 50/50 goal, that is, that half the staff in the professional and higher categories are women. When he took over, the proportion was 30/70. Grossi also created the Marie Curie and the Lisa Meirner Fellowship Programs to increase the number of women in the nuclear field, supporting an inclusive workforce of both men and women who contribute to and drive global scientific and technological innovation.
Now, does it really matter if the next UN Secretary General is a woman? The fact that as the Secretary General of UNCTAD Rebeca Grynspan she claims data on gender parity and the Sustainable Development Goals remains largely uncollected, well, is not a good argument at this very moment when she is expected to push hard on gender issues. She certainly must know that not because she is a woman she would be elected no matter what.
The big question then is: who is more suitable from the perspective of the five permanent members of the Security Council? More specifically: what is the United States -and Donald Trump- thinking? One may argue that because Trump is not in a multilateral mood, having reduced the budget for more than 60 international organizations and after leaving UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO), he may not worry about Grynspan or Grossi.
But here comes politics: who would best serve the US interests at the United Nations? Grynspan? Grossi? Costa Rica, the home country of Rebeca Grynspan has been ruled by a populist right-wing party, Partido Pueblo Soberano (PPS) and the outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves -who supported the candidacy of Grynspan to the UN- hand picked his successor, Laura Fernández, who will assume next May 8. She has criticized Mexico by saying she would not like Costa Rica to become an organized crime hub and claims she will continue fighting mobs and criminals. She has been compared to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. This is just to say that with Costa Rica, Donald Trump must feel satisfy.
But then comes his buddy, Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who has supported Trump one time after another, and it is a key player in South America to counterbalance Brazil’s Lula Da Silva and even Colombia’s Gustavo Petro -although the terms of the two may finish this year- in South America. Milei endorsed Grossi’s candidacy. And Donald Trump may not have second thoughts about Grossi who has been instrumental as head of the IAEA to the US. Grossi has not criticized the military attacks of Israel and the US against nuclear installations. Instead, in a recent interview at CBS he said US military action has degraded Iran's nuclear program — but parts of the program have survived, and Iran still has the technical know-how to enrich uranium.
Before June’s airstrikes in 2025, the IAEA assessed that Iran had enriched some 972 pounds of uranium to 60 percent purity. According to the IAEA's metrics, about 92. 5 pounds is theoretically enough to build a single nuclear weapon if enriched to 90 percent. This is why Grossi has been accused by several experts of providing arguments that support Trump’s actions against Iran, since, they say, his talk is very much speculation rather than evidence. In this respect, Grossi may be taking advantage of the war against Iran to advance his candidacy as UN Secretary General, which is a double-edged sword. He may secure the support of the Donald Trump administration but may lead other Security Council members to vote for Grynspan, simply because they would not want to see a Secretary General acting as the protégè of Trump neither as a branch of the US State Department or a spokesperson of Marco Rubio.
In the past 10 years, the world has dramatically changed. In 2016, most questions to candidates focused on peacekeeping, conflict mediation, and relations with major powers. Those issues will always be crucial to the Secretary-General’s role. Yet the world confronting the next UN leader looks very different from the one that shaped the last debate. Today’s global agenda is defined not only by war and peace but also by a much wider set of disruptions: epidemics and pandemics, environmental degradation, widening inequality, humanitarian emergencies, the transformation of international trade, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, and worrying set backs on human rights. The crisis of multilateralism and the relevance of the United Nations in today’s world is not a minor issue.
This is the scenario. From 20th April, the candidates will face three-hour interactive sessions during which they will present their case for leading the 193-member organization and answer questions from diplomats and civil society representatives in New York. There are claims that these encounters should also develop in Geneva, Nairobi, Tokyo and Viena, to make it more global at different UN venues. Although the winner will need a simple majority in the General Assembly, the UN Charter says that the Assembly appoints the UN’s top official upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Here is where the process becomes blurred. In any case, in a couple of months the name of the winner will be announced. Let’s hope is for the good of the United Nations and the world.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by María Cristina Rosas, a professor and researcher in the faculty of political and social sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author. Rosas can be reached via email at: mcrosas@prodigy.net.mx
