Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica has regained the lead in the process to become the next United Nations secretary-general after receiving nine “encourage” votes in the Security Council’s third secret straw poll, held on Friday, Sept. 18. So far, however, the race has not produced a definitive front-runner as UN member states speculate about possible last-minute entrants that the Council can coalesce behind.
Although Grynspan, the secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development and a former Costa Rican vice president, reached the nine-vote threshold required for a formal Security Council decision, she also got five discourage votes and one no opinion from the members.
The results of the Sept. 18 poll, which were obtained by PassBlue and verified by several diplomatic sources, do not reveal whether any of the discouragements that candidates received (everyone got at least one) came from the Council’s five veto-wielding members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — as the Council has yet to move to color-coded ballots. They distinguish the veto holders’ votes from that of the 10 elected members.
Sources suggested to PassBlue that two of Grynspan’s five discourage votes could have come from China and Russia. Ultimately, a successful candidate will need to secure not only 9 encourage votes but no veto from a permanent member.
Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Guyana’s ambassador to the UN and a former foreign minister of her country, topped the most-previous straw poll, on Aug. 21, by placing first with eight encourage votes, three discouragements and four no opinion.
But Grynspan’s showing on Sept. 18 puts her back ahead of Rodrigues Birkett. Grynspan led the first round on July 30, with 10 encourage, while Rodrigues Birkett received nine. In the second round, on Aug. 21, Grynspan and Rafael Grossi of Argentina each got seven encourages.
Grossi, who is the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fell to five encourage votes in Friday’s poll. He received eight discourage votes and two no opinions.
Uganda’s Olara Otunnu, a former UN special representative for children and armed conflict, also received five encourage votes, along with seven discourage and three no opinions. Macky Sall, a former president of Senegal, recorded five encourage votes, nine discourages and one no opinion.
Results of UN Security Council Straw Polls
Chart by PassBlue
Discourage
No opinion
Sept 18 (latest)
Aug 21
Jul 30 (earliest)
Former UN General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador (nominated by Antigua and Barbuda) received three encourage votes, six discourage and six no opinions.
Michelle Bachelet, a former two-time president of Chile and ex-UN human rights chief, received one encourage, 11 discourages and three no opinions. A diplomat who is closely familiar with Bachelet’s campaign told PassBlue that she might soon drop out of the race as her numbers from the poll results continue to lag behind.
The diplomat said that Bachelet’s campaign, backed by Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (and by Mexico), had decided to continue the bid at least through the Sept. 18 poll to try to convert undecided Council members to her side. But her polling on Friday might make the decision to step down clearer for her.
Bachelet has met with 14 of the 15 Council members, either in their capitals or in New York City, including a phone call with Denmark and an in-person meeting with the Democratice Republic of the Congo’s delegation in Manhattan.
The United States, her biggest opponent in the Council, remains the only member that has not met with her, despite concerted outreach by her campaign team in Washington and New York City.
Ivonne A-Baki, a former Ecuadorian ambassador to the US and the newest entrant in the contest, received no encourage votes, 10 discourages and five no opinions. She has not said if she will withdraw from the race, but a member of her campaign team told PassBlue recently that A-Baki held dozens of “very productive” meetings with numerous countries and ambassadors at the UN this week. The representative would not confirm whether A-Baki had ever spoken to a US government official about her campaign.
By this time in the 2016 selection process, which produced the current secretary-general, António Guterres, two candidates had dropped out by the third round of straw polls. Another important comparison with the process that produced Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister, was that as he quickly emerged as the frontrunner, his straw poll results never dropped below 11 “encourage” votes at any point in the race, according to the Security Council Report, an independent monitor of the Council’s work.
France’s ambassador, Jérôme Bonnafont, who holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, confirmed to the press on Sept. 18, as a matter of course, that the poll had taken place and results were being communicated to the president of the General Assembly and to the UN missions of the nominating countries, but he gave zero details of the polling results. Bahrain and the Democratic Republic of Congo, both elected members, served as tellers for Friday’s vote. The Council president is expected to shred the ballots immediately.
The final straw polls in both the 2016 and 2006 selection processes were held in early October. A fourth straw poll for the current race could follow shortly after the General Assembly’s high-level week ends on Sept. 28. Greece holds the rotating presidency of the Council in October, so it could conceivably have the chance to announce who the members will recommend to the General Assembly for its approval.
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, "Sex for Grades." In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master's of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
