Former Guyana minister leads in second straw poll for UN chief

• Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana led the second UN chief straw poll, ahead of Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan and Argentina's Rafael Grossi.
• The Security Council's informal voting process continues amid potential new candidates and veto threats from permanent members.
• A candidate must gain nine votes and avoid vetoes before the General Assembly confirms the new UN secretary-general, with regional rotation expected this time.

UNITED NATIONS, United States - Guyanese ex-foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett narrowly led the second round of the informal process to pick the next UN chief, a diplomatic source and specialist media said on Aug 21.

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan was the front-runner in July when the 15-member Security Council held a first informal vote, behind closed doors and by secret ballot.

She dipped slightly to second place, while Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, the current head of the UN nuclear watchdog, came in third, according to the diplomatic source and specialist publication Pass Blue.

Other candidates include fourth-placed Macky Sall of Senegal, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Uganda’s Olara Otunnu.

Ecuador’s Ivonne A-Baki has also thrown her hat into the race since the first straw poll.

The outgoing secretary-general, Antonio Guterres of Portugal, ends his second five-year term on Dec 31, 2026.

Denmark’s UN ambassador Christina Lassen, whose country holds the Council’s rotating presidency, said the body was considering the timing of the next straw poll.

“It’s too early to have a consensus,” said council-member Democratic Republic of Congo’s ambassador Zenon Ngay Mukongo after the vote.

International Crisis Group’s Daniel Forti said earlier that the veto-wielding nations – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – might wait until later to express their preferences, while new contenders could emerge.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Aug 20 he could not rule out that possibility.

“If, for example – I’m speculating now – if there is a deadlock on any of the candidates we are seeing today, if nobody... flies, then I think that we may see other candidates as well,” Nebenzia said.

‘End of the road’?

Even if a candidate earns the required nine votes from the 15 available in the Security Council, they must also avoid a veto by the five major powers, which are deeply divided.

Once a candidate clears those bars, their name will go to the General Assembly of all UN members for confirmation.

The Security Council straw poll was devised in the early 1980s in an attempt to break a deadlock between two candidates shut down by vetoes.

The informal mechanism has persisted, in various forms, despite criticism from countries opposed to the opaque process.

“There is a good chance that some nominees realise after (the Aug 21) vote that their campaigns have reached the end of the road,” Forti added.

Each member state must anonymously assign each candidate one of three labels: “encourage,” “discourage,” or “no opinion.”

Rodrigues received eight votes of encouragement, three of discouragement, and four of no opinion, according to the diplomatic source.

That would give those with no support – such as A-Baki, who received no encouragement straws – the opportunity to withdraw, though they are not obliged.

In the first rounds of the process, which is expected to take several weeks, all ballots are the same colour.

But after an unspecified number of votes, the ballots of the Council’s five permanent members will have a different colour, making it possible to identify potential vetoes, without knowing which country blackballed any given candidate.

It is tradition that the UN’s top job should rotate between different regions.

Under that premise, the role should go to a candidate from Latin America this time. There are many candidates from the region, though Sall and Otunnu hail from Africa. AFP