Former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres has been the head of the United Nations headquarters in New York since 2016. The race to succeed him has been underway since early summer. UN member states were able to propose candidates, but according to Xavier Bettel, it should ideally be a woman, as there has never been a female UN Secretary-General.
"I'm honestly of the opinion that it's important for a woman to finally become Secretary-General of the UN. That hasn't happened yet. For me, that would be an important sign. The geographical question is also one that needs to be addressed. But well, if there's no candidate who meets all the conditions, then I think it's important that a compromise is found."
Two female candidates are currently in the running for the secret ballot. One is Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, the former Guyanese foreign minister and current ambassador to New York, and the other is Rebecca Grynspan Mayufis, an economist from Costa Rica and former vice president of her country. She is the Luxembourg foreign minister's favourite so far. But since the Security Council has not been able to agree on a candidate, new names have entered the race, including Lana Nusseibeh, a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates, who joined on Thursday.
"I'm definitely happy that Lana is the one who put forward her candidacy", Bettel commented. "A woman, a Muslim woman, but one who doesn't wear a headscarf, a modern Muslim woman. With these tensions, it's perhaps also important for someone to make their mark in that regard."
The main decision maker is the UN Security Council, and as is often the case, a candidate must be in good favour with its five permanent members: the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, and France.
The UN Security Council is deliberating on the various candidates via a series of anonymous votes. By the end of this year, they must agree on one candidate and then submit them to the UN General Assembly. This candidate will then be confirmed by a simple majority.
So far, the General Assembly has never opposed a proposal from the Security Council, although that would be theoretically possible.
