When asked last week if she would like to compete for the position of the next Secretary General of the United Nations, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley responded with a smile and a thumbs up. However, UN officials claim that she is a potential front-runner informally.
Though the selection process for 2026 is still a ways off, discussion about who is most likely to receive the important position has already started.
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Given that the role has historically rotated geographically, it is probable that the next UN chief will come from the area of Latin America and the Caribbean. Many supporters argue that after 78 years of exclusively male heads, it is time for a female contender.
Mottley is one of numerous names being thrown around as potential candidates in the halls and backrooms of the UN headquarters in New York. Although a spokeswoman for Juan Manuel Santos disputes the rumors, two sources claim that the former president of Colombia and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize will shortly begin a campaign.
Alicia Bárcena, the foreign affairs secretary of Mexico, Rebeca Grynspan, a senior UN official and a former vice president of Costa Rica, and Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, a former president of the UN General Assembly and a former minister of Ecuador, are a few names that frequently come up in discussions about who might succeed current UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
But the name that frequently sparks the most enthusiasm is that of the colorful and outspoken Mottley. Although Mottley has not yet declared her intention to run, a UN diplomat declared that if she did, “I would jump up and down” with joy.
She would have his support if she decided to run for office, according to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves.
“I think she would make a great Secretary-General,” he said, “Whatever she does, I will support her.”
Mottley was elected to a second term as prime minister of Barbados in a landslide four years after taking office.
She has garnered attention on a global scale for severing post-colonial ties between her nation and the British monarchy as well as for her forceful rhetoric on reparations for slavery, climate change, and the necessity of reforming international financial institutions through the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral banks.
When it comes to abilities, Mottley is as uncompromising. In her recent speech to the General Assembly, she questioned: “How is it possible for Chevron and the European Union to access the oil and gas of Venezuela, but the people of the Caribbean cannot access it at the 35 percent discount offered by the people of Venezuela?”
In 2022, Mottley was the driving force behind the Bridgetown Initiative, a political initiative to make the global financial system and the financing of development more equal, particularly in light of the climate problem. The plan would alter how loans are made to poor nations and create a unique emergency fund for natural disasters brought on by climate change.
Mottley also teamed up with the current head of the UN, António Guterres, and unveiled Bridgetown 2.0 in April. Bridgetown 2.0 outlines six development priorities for development finance that will be discussed globally at the COP28 conference in November, the Summit of the Future in 2024, and the annual meeting of the IMF-World Bank group in October.
Numerous diplomats in New York City and other locations have confidence in Mottley’s capability to advocate for matters concerning developing nations in her role as UN secretary-general. They also trust in her leadership style and expect her to bring her unique approach to the position.
A UN diplomat stated, ”I don’t think I recall another leader in recent history other than Obama that had the attention of the international community as she does.”
However, experts caution that she is running a political risk. Mottley needs to carefully consider her future moves, according to UN expert Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, because the idea seriously threatens the current state of international finance.
Others have noted that seeking to alter current procedures runs the danger of upsetting at least one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, who have the last say over the Secretary-General selection procedure.
Multiple requests for interviews with Mottley’s staff received no response.
In January 2027, the next Secretary General of the UN would assume duty. Is it too soon to start discussing who the organization’s future leader will be after four years have passed? Some believe that this conversation is crucial for an organization that is about to undergo a sea change as it struggles to deal with criticism and geopolitical stalemate in the influential Security Council.
According to Valtonen and others, the organization needed its first female head yesterday. However, she added, “This position should very much be merit-based,” she added, “but I think it’d be very remarkable if again, it’s not a woman who is chosen.”
Long secretive, the selection procedure started to become more transparent in 2016. Candidates must first be nominated by a nation, generally their own, and then recommended to the General Assembly by the Security Council.
The selection procedure has long been kept under wraps, but in 2016, some transparency was achieved. Candidates must first be nominated by a nation, generally their own, and then the Security Council must propose them to the General Assembly.
An effort to solely submit female candidates is presently being renewed after a number of nations made the commitment during the 2016 selection process. Seven of the thirteen candidates that ran in 2016 were female. But in the end, Guterres, a Portuguese diplomat who had long been seen as the favorite for the position, won.
Ben Donaldson, director of campaigns at the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom, stated “There’s always lots of men that want to run.”
He remarked that hopefully this year “the message is coming through loud and clear from the majority of states and from civil society that no state should be putting forward male candidates. We are all working to increase the stigma around this, hopefully, we can nip it in the bud.”
Former Secretary General candidate Susana Malcorra, who is also the creator and president of the advocacy group Global Women Leaders Voices, is striving to ensure that political pressure will push female candidates ahead in the upcoming round.
She noted, “It’s not so much about talking about a Julie or Anne, or Mary, it is more about talking about a Madame Secretary-General as a general proposition and then making sure that we pave the way to get there.”
However, not everyone supports the initiative.
Male candidates shouldn’t be discouraged from running, according to Trinidad and Tobago native and president of the 78th UN General Assembly Dennis Francis. “I believe that men should run next time around as I believe women should run in their numbers,” he noted.
“Because what I would want to happen is for a woman to win in those circumstances, not from a field of women. That would be the wrong message.”
And since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the influential Security Council has been deadlocked on a number of topics, making it difficult to envisage its members eventually coming to an agreement on any one candidate.
Julia Maciel, a Paraguayan ambassador, stated, “All I have to say is grab your popcorn.”
