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Color clarifies. Or, that was at least the hope as we headed for the sixth round of the informal straw polls for the next Secretary-General, and the first featuring color-coded ballots distinguishing between permanent (read: veto-carrying) and elected members of the UN Security Council.
Yet, what is clear after today’s vote is that color might have only further muddied the canvass. The race has stalled, and no candidate has managed to make a breakthrough (again!).
The Sixth Straw Poll
In this round, we found out that:
The top three candidates, Rebeca Grynspan, Rafael Grossi, and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, hold onto their lead positions.
If anything, Grossi (the first to declare his candidacy all the way back in November of 2025) has clawed back the ground he lost last round and now sits in the top two.
But there is a (bright red) catch, as each of the three drew two red ballots from the P5. Overcoming these vetoes is without doubt a tough obstacle to overcome.
The rest of the field trails far behind, somewhere on the spectrum from long shot to clearly unviable.
The sense that a yet undeclared (wo)man is standing in the shadows and will soon reveal themselves has only intensified since our last dispatch. The US Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, assured all at the press stakeout after the vote that the race will be completed by… the year’s end. That’s a low bar, given the transition process was expected to start this month.
Others think the race could be over soon though, as a new candidate sweeps in for a quick win (see our Anointed in the Shadows scenario). With the front-running trio facing P5 resistance, the Council risks look dysfunctional and may press the accelerator to avoid losing face.
The date for the next straw poll is yet to be announced.
We the Women
Whoever emerges in the weeks to come, from the limelight or the shadows, will inherit an organization that is yet to have a woman in its top leadership post. But the founding text of which, the UN Charter, names women’s equality specifically as one of its aims.
This was not an accident, but a fight as my colleague Luisa Kislinger writes in her latest post, The Antidote is Action.
When the UN Charter was drafted in San Francisco in 1945, only a handful of the delegates were women. One of them, Virginia Gildersleeve from the United States, is credited by historians with shaping the document’s opening words (“We the Peoples…”).
But a small group from Latin America went further. As Luisa writes, Bertha Lutz of Brazil and Minerva Bernardino of the Dominican Republic argued that the new Organization’s founding text could not get by on general references to human rights. They pushed for as many explicit references to “women” as possible.
Their persistence paid off, and the Charter became the first international agreement to explicitly proclaim “the equal rights of men and women.”
Eight decades on, the UN has done a great deal to advance women’s rights, as the UN Foundation documents in Where the Future Was Built. Gender parity in the senior ranks is one of the crowning achievements of António Guterres. He achieved it in early 2020, two years ahead of his own deadline, and set a target of parity at every level by 2028. Credit is also due to his predecessor, Ban Ki-moon, who laid much of the groundwork.
Yet, there is still a long way to go. In her essay, Luisa lays out a plan the next Secretary-General could follow to defend girls’ and women’s rights. An essential read for whoever comes on top.
Where the Future Will Be Rebuilt
Reading (and Listening) List
If you enjoyed Luisa’s essay, here are is what she has been reading in the past couple of week:
The UN Foundation traces the history of feminist movements at the UN in Where the Future Was Built and A Chorus for Equality, while Stephanie Oula and Sia Nowrojee (Gender & Development) push the research further.
Nicholas Kristof (New York Times) makes the case for why investing in women and girls remains the strongest lever for global progress.
Binaifer Nowrojee (PassBlue) discusses how Open Society Foundations and feminist movements are navigating the global backlash against rights.
Thomas Piketty (El País) unpacks global inequality and the concentration of wealth (in Spanish), plus dive into coverage of his Global Justice Project (in English).
Ezra Klein and Francis Fukuyama (The Ezra Klein Show) debate liberal order, state capacity, and institutional decay.
Andy Burnham (The Rest Is Money) explores the economics and politics of a potential UK return to the European Union.
On Substack: And a few Substacks to explore on global affairs, feminist movements, and history: Elmira Bayrasli’s Interruptrr, Chills, by Lauren Wolfe, Jill Filipovic’s Throughline, BehanBox, The Feminist Institute Newsletter, and The Women's History Project. Plus, check out Valeria Colunga who asks: Are we setting up women for the world’s toughest job?
