When I ran for secretary-general of the United Nations in 2016, I believed that everything the organization stood for was becoming increasingly more important. I believed that multilateralism, preventing wars, political equality, international law, human rights, freedom from hunger, fear and authoritarianism, even old-fashioned empathy, would in the immediate future need to not only progress but also to be defended.
Coming from a country in southeastern Europe — Croatia — that in the 1990s went through wars from the breakup of Yugoslavia, I had firsthand experience of what it is like when international law and multilateral organizations fail. But I also knew what a tremendous difference it made when they worked. So, I thought that it was the right time, with big changes visible on the horizon, for a candidate from Eastern Europe to lead the UN.
I also thought that it was time for a woman to bring that half of the human experience to the top office of the organization. Almost a decade later, the fears of nearly 10 years ago have become reality, and the argument I made then for the importance of the UN has grown only stronger and the need more urgent.
In 2016, there was optimism that the selection process would open a new chapter for the UN. For the first time, candidates presented vision statements, faced public hearings and answered questions before the General Assembly. We were told that transparency, merit and gender equality would shape the results. They did not.
Although there were seven women in the running, all quality candidates, the process produced, yet again, a man from the West. There were many reasons, some more personal and some more general, that led to that result. In hindsight, a few stand out:
- By 2016, Russia had already invaded Crimea and started its slow war on Ukraine. The world, however, was still trying hard to pretend that nothing was changing. It was a pretense that was unlikely to be maintained with a woman secretary-general from Eastern Europe. That unofficially disqualified four of the seven women candidates.
- Despite ample signs on the ground, there was a sense that if we all pretended that everything was business as usual, the global disruption and upheaval signaled by Russia’s incursion in Crimea could somehow be stopped. And business as usual meant selecting a male UN secretary-general.
- Although the whole candidacy and election process was new, exciting and promising, and I will forever be grateful for having been part of it, the real decision had still been made the old way — among the five permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
This time around, the situation is different. Everybody is aware that the world has been backsliding from multilateralism to the model of great powers’ spheres of interest. The task of the new secretary-general is officially recognized as having become much harder, which could create an opening for a woman.
Nine years later, the UN has turned 80 amid what observers call a “lost decade for humanity.” Wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo rage on. Human rights and democratic norms are being attacked. Multilateralism, once the world’s insurance policy, is now questioned by countries and leaders who should protect it. The UN’s own Sustainable Development Goals are falling out of reach and even being dismissed. And the organization is living through a crisis of legitimacy.
For the UN to succeed, for humanity to find a common ground amid this current era of crisis, it needs leadership that understands fragility, that understands courage and, most of all, that understands doing more with less. To reclaim its authority and legitimacy, the UN needs to reinvent itself around its original main purpose: preventing and stopping wars. That goal requires a lot of first-rate diplomacy and deep knowledge of the no-man’s-land between an old order disappearing and a new one not yet in place. Reclaiming the purpose of the UN will also need a sense of politics of everyday life, because that is where the first signs of crisis appear and where the rebuilding must start.
That is why the time has come — yet again — to elect a woman, a woman from Eastern Europe, as the next secretary-general. This is not about symbolism. It is about experience. There are many highly qualified women from our part of the world that can lead the UN.
Indeed, women from my region have lived through the collapse of an order and the painful birth of a new one. We know what it means to rebuild democratic institutions after conflict, to negotiate peace while seeking justice and to nurture a future when societies are divided. We have seen close-up how fragile peace can be and how necessary diplomacy, dialogue and rule of law help to sustain it. Those lessons are part of who we are in our corner of Europe as individuals and as societies.
The first-hand experience of war, transition and reconciliation is exactly what the UN needs now. It needs a secretary-general who can confront climate breakdown, human rights erosion and democratic backsliding with courage, not caution; someone who can work with great powers and small island states and everybody in between. Such leadership requires exceptional diplomatic and communication skills, as well as a deep conviction that a rules-based world is the safest path for all. It requires someone who can be her own woman in a world where the powerful do what they want and the powerless suffer what they must, to paraphrase Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian.
The next secretary-general must be a woman who has fought for democracy, equality and peace, who knows what it means to stand up to power and still seek compromise, who is independent. Eastern Europe has many women who meet that profile. Here are a few: Laura Kovesi, European Union chief prosecutor (Romania); Maia Sandu, president (Moldova); Radmila Sekerinska, deputy secretary-general NATO (North Macedonia); Tanja Fajon, foreign minister (Slovenia); Ewa Kopacz, vice president, European Parliament (Poland); Marketa Pekarova Adamova, chair, lower house of Czech Parliament (Czechia); and Kristalina Georgieva, director of the International Monetary Fund (Bulgaria).
So far, these women have mostly not expressed their intention of running for the office of UN secretary-general. But they should be talked to, drafted, encouraged. This chance for a new leadership approach should not be missed.
The latest PassBlue informal survey of readers shows how much the world is looking to Latin America and the Caribbean for the next top UN executive. It is not surprising. This region has produced outstanding women leaders in the past couple of decades, and in the process transformed itself into one of the most peaceful and stable parts of the world. Eastern Europe has that same potential but has been made semi-invisible in the past.
The absence of serious attention to the region in selecting candidates for the next UN boss underscores the problem. A credible, unifying woman candidate from Eastern Europe would embody the resilience and renewal the UN so desperately needs.
I’m convinced the selection process in 2026 will decide whether the UN remains relevant and able to offer a path toward peaceful resolution and settlement of conflicts, based on the rule of law, accountability and international norms. Most of all, the next leader will understand that dignity and political equality are the same for everyone across the world.
Having gone through the process of being a candidate in 2016, I stand behind women candidates this time around because that is the world’s best hope.
This is an opinion essay.
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on an Eastern European woman to lead the UN?
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Vesna Pusic is a former Croatian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, and a 2016 candidate for UN Secretary-General.
In2016, my country, Ukraine, who was an SC member on behalf of Eastern European Group at the time, made a mistake by not supporting enough an East European woman for the SG post. This mistake carried severe punishment after the Russian aggression started in 2022. Mr. Guterres has been a good communicator, but his heart and skills were not invested in peace and security issues. Suffice to say that it took long time and a lot of pressure to push the SG just to visit Kyiv. Any East European candidate of 2016, especially female, would have been more compassionate, putting human lives ahead of “grain from Ukraine”. The facts of the matter are indisputable: the UN needs a lady at the helm, and it is East European turn. Ms. Pusic has presented a very convincing list of viable candidates. Russians may not like it, but so what? It’s a do or die time for the UN, Eastern Europe has all the expertise and passion to save it.
The visible signs of a person participating in a country rebuilding are surely strong arguments for an Eastern European candidate.
Vesna, thank you for the contribution, however let us not make this a beauty conteste, because the UN is at cross-road and the world needs a great woman leader with exceptional skills where ever she is coming from to help charter the UN during these very troubling times. Times where its charter is in question because no longer respected by Member States and members of the Security Council (P5) which have shown very little support for its core values. Looking around the world we are seeing too much killings, too many wars and human suffering, peace is in total jeopardy in Africa, Middle-east, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, therefore we need a stronger, efficacious and better UN which has the power to impose PEACE and uphold HUMAN RIGHTS!
I also support this