Who wants to be SecGen? – Global South candidates make their pitch as IAEA’s Grossi claims UN ‘absent’ from conflict resolution, others slam ‘lack of trust’

UN Leadership Candidates

The six candidates for the next UN secretary general – including huge names from the Global South – took to the stage for the UN Town Hall: The Next Secretary-General in New York on Thursday, with many calling for major changes at the United Nations.

“The coming selection of the next Secretary General could arguably be one of the most consequential in the eight years of history of this great institution,” current IAEA chief Rafael Gross said, as he made his pitch.

“We see, and it’s hard to see, that the UN is absent from the resolution of the most serious conflicts that we are going through. And we also see that we are not performing at the level we should be in other areas,” he added.

Candidates Seek Reform

Footage shows Grossi from Argentina, former president of Senegal Macky Sall, former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet, former Ecuador foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan – the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development – and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations and former minister.

Sall said that on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz “we need more than ever a Security Council that functions in line with the provisions of the UN Charter… the lack of trust between the members today, particularly between the permanent members, is that that means that crises go on without solutions being found.”

Bachelet also said there was a ‘lack of trust’ too: “We’re living in times with armed conflict as a historic high, where civilians are killed or injured in tragic numbers, inequalities rising, the climate crisis ever more urgent, and human rights are disregarded. Amidst all, there’s a lack of trust in institutions.”

Next Secretary General Vote

The winner is decided via UN Security Council recommendation, following a series of private polls – and must receive nine votes in favour with no veto from any of the five permanent members.

Traditionally, the post rotates around the globe with Latin America staking its claim – and Sall the only candidate not from the region.

They will succeed Antonio Guterres, whose second five-year term concludes on December 31, 2026 – and the new secretary general will take office on January 1, 2027.

UN Web TV, via Viory.Video

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