Three UN chief frontrunners each lose two veto-power votes

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Argentina’s Rafael Grossi each drew two “discourage” votes from the UN Security Council’s five permanent members in an informal straw poll on Oct. 16, 2026, leaving the race to succeed Secretary-General António Guterres without a candidate who could clear a veto, according to PassBlue.

The poll, the sixth of the selection, was the first to use colour-coded ballots that separate the five permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States) from the 10 elected members. A candidate needs at least nine “encourage” votes and no discourage vote from a permanent member to win the Council’s recommendation. Guterres’s term ends Dec. 31, about nine weeks from now.

PassBlue, an independent UN news site, reported that Grynspan received nine encourage, five discourage and one no-opinion vote, with three permanent members encouraging her and two discouraging her. She is the only candidate to reach nine. Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana’s ambassador to the UN, got eight encourage and six discourage votes, and Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, got eight encourage votes, with two permanent members for him and two against, PassBlue reported.

Ecuador’s Ivonne A-Baki, nominated by Tonga, drew one encourage vote and 14 discourage votes, with the permanent members “roundly rejecting” her, PassBlue reported. Senegal’s Macky Sall withdrew from the race after the poll, according to the same outlet’s candidate tracker.

The Council does not publish straw poll results, and the figures come from diplomatic sources. Xinhua reported that Greece, which holds the Council presidency for October, announced the poll took place on Oct. 16 and that no tally was released. Security Council Report said China and the United States were the tellers. The Rio Times reported the same numbers for Grynspan and Rodrigues-Birkett. None of the reports names which permanent members voted against which candidate, and Canada News Media has not independently confirmed the tallies.

Grynspan said the poll was not a formal vote. “There was no formal vote today, and therefore we cannot talk about vetoes,” she said, according to the Rio Times. She said the race was entering “the second half of the match” and that her campaign was the best positioned, a claim the Council cannot confirm because it keeps results private.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said member states keep the right to nominate more candidates and that Washington would prefer a decision this year. “We prefer it be done this calendar year, certainly before the end of Secretary-General Guterres’s term,” he said, PassBlue reported. Panama’s deputy permanent representative, Ricardo Moscoso, wrote of “intense competition amongst the three leading candidates,” all of whom come from Latin America and the Caribbean. Panama backs Grossi.

The vacuum has revived talk of late entrants. PassBlue reported on Oct. 21 on the possible candidacy of Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, and France 24 reported on Oct. 22 that the Emirati diplomat could become the next UN chief despite human rights concerns about her country’s record abroad. PassBlue’s tracker still lists her as speculated, not formally nominated. Jamaica’s Courtenay Rattray, the UN chief of staff, has also been named as a possible entrant.

No date has been set for the next straw poll. Once the Council settles on a candidate, the 193-member General Assembly must approve the appointment, and the new secretary-general is due to take office Jan. 1, 2027. Our Oct. 14 report covered the previous poll, which also put Grynspan in front.

For Canadians, the outcome matters through the General Assembly, where Canada has a vote, rather than the Council, where it holds no seat in 2026 and has no say in the straw polls. The next secretary-general will inherit a UN that Guterres said this month is off track on its nature goals.

Via PassBlue, Xinhua, Security Council Report and The Rio Times. Sources: PassBlue, Xinhua.

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