UN Secretary-General Race: What the Second Security Council Straw Poll Means

The race to replace António Guterres as United Nations secretary-general is still unsettled. The 15-member Security Council is holding its second informal, confidential and non-binding straw poll on August 21, after the first vote put Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan narrowly ahead.

Grynspan’s early lead matters, but it is not a selection. The eventual candidate must secure a formal Security Council recommendation and avoid a veto by any of the five permanent members. That makes diplomatic acceptability at least as important as the headline vote count.

What happened in the first straw poll?

The first poll took place on July 30. Each Council member anonymously assessed every candidate using three options: “encourage,” “discourage” or “no opinion.” At that stage, the ballots did not distinguish the five permanent members from the 10 elected members, so the results showed overall support but did not reveal whether a veto power opposed a particular candidate.

The reported leading results were:

• Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica: 10 encourage, one discourage and four no-opinion votes.
• Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana: nine encourage, two discourage and four no-opinion votes.
• Rafael Grossi of Argentina: seven encourage, two discourage and six no-opinion votes.

Michelle Bachelet of Chile, María Fernanda Espinosa of Ecuador, Macky Sall of Senegal and Olara Otunnu of Uganda trailed the top three in the first round. The ballot was a preliminary test of viability, not a binding vote or final ranking.

The eight candidates in the race

The field now includes eight people:

• Rebeca Grynspan, Costa Rica
• Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana
• Rafael Grossi, Argentina
• Ivonne Baki, Ecuador
• Michelle Bachelet, Chile
• María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador
• Macky Sall, Senegal
• Olara Otunnu, Uganda

Grynspan, Rodrigues-Birkett and Grossi are the only candidates with demonstrated support from the first Council poll. Baki’s position is impossible to measure from that ballot because she entered the contest afterward.

Why Ivonne Baki’s late entry matters

Tonga nominated Ecuadorian diplomat and former government minister Ivonne Baki this week, making her the eighth candidate and the second Ecuadorian in the field. She has served as an ambassador and was not included in the July 30 straw poll.

Baki has presented conflict prevention and renewal of the United Nations as central themes of her campaign. In discussing that platform, she referred to her personal experience during Lebanon’s civil war.

Claims that Baki has formal U.S. backing, or that her reported relationships with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton amount to an American voting commitment, are not established by the reporting available here. No official U.S. endorsement or pledge of support is identified in the provided sources, so those claims should not be treated as confirmed.

The dispute over transparency and Baerbock’s role

General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock has pushed for a more transparent and inclusive process, including timely nominations, public candidate dialogues and wider opportunities for UN member states to hear from contenders. Her office has emphasized equal conditions and broader participation before the Security Council makes its choice.

The United States and Russia have criticized what they see as an expansion of Baerbock’s role into the Security Council’s selection process. Reporting describes Washington as accusing her of overreach, while Russia has also objected to the role she has sought to play.

The disagreement reflects a structural tension in the process: the General Assembly can press for openness and participation, but Article 97 of the UN Charter places the recommendation stage with the Security Council. The straw polls themselves are informal and politically influential rather than binding legal decisions.

Why Russia’s position could keep the race open

Russia has indicated that additional candidates may still be possible and has criticized Guterres’s record in the broader context of UN effectiveness and conflict management. That stance leaves Moscow room to resist an early consensus around the current front-runners.

The available reporting does not establish that Russia has formally committed to or rejected any named candidate. Its openness to more names is therefore best understood as a sign that the field—and the bargaining around it—may not yet be settled.

How the secretary-general is chosen

Under Article 97, the General Assembly appoints the secretary-general after receiving a recommendation from the Security Council. In practice, the Council must identify a candidate who can win at least nine of its 15 votes and avoid a veto from any of the permanent five: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Later straw polls generally make the veto risk easier to see by distinguishing the views of permanent members from those of elected members. That information can be more consequential than a candidate’s total number of “encourage” votes.

Timeline and regional politics

Guterres’s second term ends on December 31, 2026. The current contest has a strong Latin American and Caribbean presence partly because an informal regional-rotation expectation favors that region this time. The convention is political, not a binding rule, and cannot override the Security Council’s power to recommend a candidate.

Further straw polls could continue through September and October—or later—if the permanent members remain divided or if additional candidates enter. Reporting ahead of the second poll described the decision as still weeks away rather than imminent.

What to watch after the second poll

The most important signal will be whether Grynspan preserves her lead, whether Rodrigues-Birkett or Grossi closes the gap, and whether any candidate attracts enough support to become a plausible compromise. Baki’s late candidacy will also be watched for signs of momentum, although a single straw poll cannot by itself establish a path to victory.

The central test is simple: can a candidate reach nine votes while remaining acceptable to all five permanent members? Until that question is answered, the first-poll standings are indicators—not a verdict.