The latest unofficial vote of the United Nations Security Council to elect the next Secretary General of this organization shows that Rebecca Greenspan, the former Vice President of Costa Rica, maintained her position at the top of the competition, and Lena Nassiba, the candidate of the United Arab Emirates, in her first appearance in this vote, came in fourth.
Reuters reported on Friday, October 30, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter, that Greenspan received 11 votes in favor and four votes against out of a total of 15 members of the Security Council in the seventh informal closed-door vote. This is his best result in seven voting rounds held in recent months.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Argentina's candidate, came second with nine votes in favor, four against and two abstentions. Carolyn Rodríguez-Brackett, Guyana's representative at the UN, also came in third with eight votes in favor, six against and one abstention. Lana Nasiba, the Emirati diplomat and former representative of this country at the United Nations, received seven votes in favor, six votes against and two votes without response. The United Arab Emirates entered the race for UN secretary-general on October 21, and Friday's vote was the first measure of the level of support among Security Council members for his candidacy.
In this round, it was not indicated on the ballot which candidates the five permanent members of the Security Council voted for, namely the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia and China. Therefore, it is not clear whether among the votes against each of the candidates was a vote of a member with veto power or not. The final candidate for presentation to the UN General Assembly must receive at least 9 positive votes in the official vote of the Security Council and none of the five permanent members of the Council must oppose him. The Security Council has not yet reached a consensus regarding any of the candidates.
Pasabello also reported that a few hours after the end of voting on Friday, Turkey appointed Feridon Sinirlioglu, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Turkey's former representative to the United Nations, as a candidate for Secretary General.
Antonio Guterres will step down from his position as UN Secretary-General after the end of his second five-year term on December 31, 1405. During the more than 80 years since the establishment of the United Nations, no woman has reached the position of Secretary General of this organization.