Rebeca Grynspan at the Regional Dialogue on the Future Leadership of the United Nations on Aug. 3. Even though she expanded her lead, Ms. Grynspan still faces the threat of vetoes.SANTIAGO MAZZAROVICH/AFP/Getty Images
Costa Rica’s former vice-president, Rebeca Grynspan, has expanded her lead in the latest Security Council voting to choose the next United Nations secretary-general, despite a much-protested new candidacy by a United Arab Emirates diplomat.
Ms. Grynspan still faces the threat of vetoes from the Security Council’s permanent members, leaving the race in a state of uncertainty with barely two months remaining until the current secretary-general, António Guterres, reaches the end of his term.
Each of the council’s 15 members, including its five permanent members, can vote to encourage or discourage any candidate. Unofficial results showed Ms. Grynspan receiving 11 “encourage” votes and four “discourages” on Friday. But the council did not disclose whether any of the negative votes were from veto-holding members.
Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, was in second place with nine positive votes and four negatives, while former Guyanese foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett was running third.
The new entrant, UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh, was in fourth place with seven “encourage” votes. Many observers still see her as the favourite, since she appears to be acceptable to veto-holding members such as the United States and Russia. Her candidacy has sparked widespread criticism from human rights groups, but she has enjoyed a surge of support from many African and Middle Eastern countries.
The winning candidate needs nine votes, including support from all permanent members. Backroom negotiations are often needed to end a stalemate. In the last straw vote, on Oct. 16, when permanent-member votes were disclosed for the first time, Ms. Grynspan received nine “encourage” votes and five negative votes – but two of the latter were from permanent members, leaving the race deadlocked.
Ms. Grynspan and the other two leading candidates have benefited from an unofficial tradition that the secretary-general’s job should be rotated among the world’s regions, and the next in line by custom is the Latin American and Caribbean region.
More than 30 ambassadors from this region gathered at the UN this week to throw their weight behind this tradition. They were responding to reports that Ms. Nusseibeh might have enough support from veto-holding countries to win the job. The UAE has close economic and political links to the Security Council’s permanent members, who include Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States.
Lana Nusseibeh at the UN headquarters in New York City on Oct. 27. An online petition, launched by civil society group Avaaz, has already gained more than 61,000 signatures against Ms. Nusseibeh’s candidacy.David Dee Delgado/Reuters
Human rights leaders and Sudan’s government have asked Ms. Nusseibeh to respond to widespread reports that the UAE is a major weapons supplier to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, which has massacred thousands of civilians since the Sudan war began in 2023. But she insists she cannot answer such questions because she has taken a leave of absence from her post as a cabinet minister in the oil-rich Gulf state.
“I refer any questions about the UAE to the UAE representation,” she told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday in her first public question-and-answer session since declaring her candidacy on Oct. 21.
Ms. Nusseibeh pledged that seeking a ceasefire in Sudan would be “a number-one priority” if she becomes secretary-general. “The atrocities committed by the RSF are atrocious,” she added.
She was replying to a question from Yonah Diamond, senior legal counsel at the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, who cited two UN reports that found evidence of the UAE providing weapons and support “instrumental to sustaining RSF atrocities.” He noted that Ms. Nusseibeh, as a UAE diplomat, has repeatedly denied these findings.
An online petition, launched by civil society group Avaaz, has already gained more than 61,000 signatures against Ms. Nusseibeh’s candidacy. “The UN’s highest office must not go to someone who covered up the very atrocities the institution was built to prevent,” the petition says.
Human Rights Watch, in a statement this week, said Ms. Nusseibeh has “an extensive record of denying and whitewashing” abuses by her country in Sudan and Yemen. Another group, the U.S.-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, said the UN could become “a tool for covering up mass atrocities” if she wins the top job.
Some politicians have voiced concern too. Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the Conservative party in Britain, told the British House of Commons this week that the government should block Ms. Nusseibeh’s candidacy because her country is “responsible for a huge amount of loss of life in Sudan.”
Heather McPherson, foreign affairs critic for the federal NDP, said the UN’s future should not be placed in the hands of “a principal enabler” of atrocities in Sudan.
Ms. Nusseibeh, however, has received a wave of public support from Gulf states, from the Palestinian government, and from several African countries, including Ethiopia, Zambia, Kenya and Chad. Associates of the Trump administration have also praised her.