Global contest

Guyana’s Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett has emerged as the front runner to become United Nations Secretary General leaving seven other declared candidates behind in last week’s secret straw vote ahead of the coming election by the Security Council. Costa Rican diplomat Rebeca Grynspan and International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi of Argentina came in second and third in the poll. Ex-Senegalese President Macky Sall, former UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Ugandan diplomat Olara Otunnu and Ecuadorian diplomat Ivonne A-Baki, who is of Lebanese parentage, have also joined the race. The nomination of five women for the top post is a departure from the UN’s 80 years of existence when only men have been elected.

The next secretary general will take office on Jan. 1, 2027, at a time when the UN faces mounting concerns over politicization, double standards, and the increasing influence of authoritarian regimes.

 Jean Krasno, chair of “Woman SG,” a New York-based group promoting the election of a female secretary-general, told The Christian Science Monitor, “Whenever I’m asked, ‘Why a woman secretary-general?’ I say, ‘Why not?’” “Women make up more than half the world’s population, and the UN was created based on principles of equity, equal rights, and opportunities for all. So, this would be the UN living up to its ideals.”

A candidate needs nine votes of the 15-member Security Council which nominates the UN chief before submitting his or her name to the 193-member General Assembly. The candidate must also avoid a veto from one of the council’s five permanent members: the US, Russia, France, Britain and China.

Socialist Portuguese politician, Antonio Guterres, 77, has served as the organisation’s ninth secretary general since 2017. While his second five-year term ends on Dec. 31 there is no fixed limit on the number of terms a secretary-general can serve, no one has served more than two.

Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden (1953–1961) and Kofi Annan of Ghana (1997–2006) are regarded as the most effective secretaries general. Although they were in office during distinctly different periods, both men developed the ethical influence and practical power of the global post and the UN as an organisation.

Hammarskjold established the first UN emergency peacekeeping force (UNEF) during the 1956 Suez Crisis when Britain and France attacked Egypt after it nationalised the Suez Canal. He confronted the world’s superpowers to defuse Cold War tensions. Tragically, he was killed in a plane crash while on a peace mission in the Congo. He was praised by US President John F. Kennedy as “the greatest statesman of our century.” This was a grand gesture by Kennedy who could have been the greatest US president if he had not been assassinated in November 1963.

Kofi Annan (1996-2007) campaigned for the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and launched the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine in a bid to prevent widespread atrocities and genocides. Annan won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 jointly with the UN in recognition of their efforts to promote global cooperation and peace-making.

The race coincides with multiple global crises which the UN has failed to resolve or even address. At the end of February this year, the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran in the expectation this would last a week at most before Tehran capitulated. This did not happen. While Israel has unilaterally disengaged, the US Trump administration has agreed to an oft violated ceasefire and negotiations which could open Iranian-blocked Strait of Hormuz, which hosts 20 per cent of global shipping of oil and goods mainly to India and the East but also to Italy.

Believing it enjoys decisive leverage over the US, Iran demands that the US must never threaten Iran again and permanently end the war with Iran and its regional militia allies – Hizbullah, Hamas, Iraqi armed groups, and Yemen’s Houthis. The US must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.

The 60-day period to negotiate a final deal has ended and has not been formally extended. No date has been set for the renewal of talks. Iran has castigated US plans to announce fresh sanctions that could raise strain on Iran’s faltering economy and warned that any country that joins US sanctions would be “considered an enemy.” The sanctions, which Washington has touted as “the toughest sanctions in history,” could have an impact on Tehran’s most important trading partners, especially China.

Meanwhile, Iran has said it was close to reaching a separate deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries. If concluded and the strait begins operating, this would ensure the flow of oil and gas to China, exclude the US from the management of Hormuz, and deny Donald Trump a victory.

Photo: TNS