Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan has widened her lead in the race to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, winning her strongest result yet in the Security Council’s eighth informal straw poll.
Grynspan, who heads the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), received 12 “encourage” votes and three “discourage” votes in Thursday’s ballot, improving on the 11 encouragements and four discouragements she recorded on 30 October. She has now led seven of the eight polls held so far.
Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, held second place with nine encouragements, four discouragements and two “no opinion” votes. Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett was third with eight encouragements, followed by the United Arab Emirates’ Lana Nusseibeh on seven.
The ballot was a poor debut for the race’s newest entrant. Türkiye’s Feridun Sinirlioğlu, secretary-general of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and nominated by Ankara on 30 October, won only three “encourage” votes against eight “discourage” votes, with four members expressing no opinion. He finished sixth of eight candidates.
Uganda’s Olara Otunnu was fifth with four encouragements, while Ecuador’s María Fernanda Espinosa was seventh with three. Ivonne A-Baki, also of Ecuador, finished last with a single “encourage” vote against 14 discouragements.
The results were not formally released by the Council, whose presidency is held this month by Latvia, and were instead reported by specialist outlets citing diplomats — so the figures should be treated as reported rather than officially confirmed.
Crucially, the ballots were not colour-coded, so they do not show whether any of the “discourage” votes came from the five veto-holding permanent members — the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France. A candidate needs at least nine votes and no veto in the Council’s formal vote before the 193-member General Assembly approves the appointment.
The Council has less than two months to reach agreement: António Guterres’s second term ends on 31 December. Russia has restated its view that the next secretary-general should come from Latin America and the Caribbean, the region whose turn it is under the UN’s rotation practice — a position that favours the three leading candidates from the region.
Sinirlioğlu is due to take questions from member states in an informal dialogue at the General Assembly on Friday, followed by a closed-door meeting with Council members on Monday. No date has been set for the next straw poll.
Sources: PassBlue and The National, via reporting on the eighth straw poll (https://allydaily.com/en/news/turkiyes-sinirlioglu-debuts-with-3-votes-as-grynspan-widens-un-race-lead and https://www.newkerala.com/news/a/costa-ricas-rebeca-grynspan-leads-un-chief-poll-373.htm); UN secretary-general race tracker (https://regroupplaybook.org/p/the-ultimate-cheatsheet).
