UN holds third informal poll for new chief

The UN's most powerful body, the Security Council, met Friday to again gauge the popularity of contenders to lead the organization as world leaders prepare to gather for its annual signature event.

No results have yet emerged from the secret indicative vote which took more than one hour, with France's envoy to the UN and the Council's rotating President Jerome Bonnafont saying only "the third round of straw polls has taken place."

No frontrunner emerged from the first two rounds of informal polls with eight candidates now vying to follow Secretary-General Antonio Guterres when his term concludes at the end of December.

Several council members have declared their desire for the embattled UN to have its first woman leader.

Guyanese ex-foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett narrowly led the second round of the secret process, while Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan came in second and Argentina's Rafael Grossi, the current head of the UN nuclear watchdog, was third.

Other candidates include Macky Sall of Senegal, Ecuador's Ivonne A-Baki, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Ecuador's Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Uganda's Olara Otunnu.

There is speculation that a compromise candidate could be parachuted into the process at the behest of the powerful five veto-wielding Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

"If that happens in a way that's not transparent... then we have a problem," said one diplomat who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Even if a candidate earns the required nine votes from the 15-member Security Council, they must also avoid a veto by any of the five major powers, which are deeply divided.

Once a candidate clears those bars, their name will go to the General Assembly of all UN members for confirmation.

Without singling out a favorite, a US State Department official said Thursday that candidates must get the UN "back to basics and publicly commit to the changes we require."

"Any new secretary-general must return the UN to its primary purpose of maintaining peace and security in the world, rather than the absurd, politicized, woke ideology that has undermined the institution’s effectiveness," the official said.

International Crisis Group's head of UN affairs Daniel Forti said "we'll be watching out for... whether any one or two candidates consolidate support from the council, or whether we sort of continue to be in a pretty muddled picture that gives more avenues for other potential contenders to jump into the race."

Each of the 15 Security Council members must anonymously assign each candidate one of three labels: "encourage," "discourage," or "no opinion."

But after an unspecified number of votes, the ballots of the Council's five permanent members will have a different color, making it possible to identify potential vetoes, without knowing which country blackballed any given candidate.

Forti said it was thought there would be another straw poll at the end of the UN signature high-level week, though that is unconfirmed.