The race to succeed António Guterres as head of the United Nations now features seven candidates, including two Africans and five from Latin America. With the entry of Ugandan Olara Otunnu, announced on Saturday, the contenders for the UN Secretary-General position are evenly split between four women and three men.
Olara Otunnu, 75, was officially presented by Uganda. He joins former Senegalese President Macky Sall among the African candidates, while Latin America traditionally claims the post based on the principle of geographic rotation. The other five contenders are Michelle Bachelet (Chile), María Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador), Rafael Grossi (Argentina), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica), and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett (Guyana), all from Latin America.
Macky Sall, 64, entered the race after his candidacy was filed by Burundi, before receiving official support from Senegal last week. During his campaign, the former Senegalese head of state highlights the link between peace, security, and development. However, his candidacy comes in a context where his record as leader of Senegal remains contested by opponents, who accuse him of suppressing political protests that resulted in dozens of deaths between 2021 and 2024.
A former UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 1997 to 2005 under Kofi Annan, Olara Otunnu also served as Uganda’s ambassador to the UN and his country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2011, he ran in the Ugandan presidential election for the opposition party, the Uganda People’s Congress, without succeeding in defeating President Yoweri Museveni.
If one of the two African candidates is selected, the continent would regain the position of UN Secretary-General for the first time since the departure of Ghanaian Kofi Annan in 2006. Since the organization’s inception, two Africans have held this role: Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992-1996) and Kofi Annan (1997-2006). They were followed by South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon (2007-2016), before the current Secretary-General, Portugal’s António Guterres, took office in January 2017.
The 15 members of the Security Council are scheduled to hold a first secret ballot on July 30 to express their preferences among the candidates. This initial indicative vote will be followed by as many rounds as necessary until a candidate obtains at least nine votes and none of the five permanent members of the Security Council—China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Russia—exercises their veto power.
The selected name will then be forwarded to the UN General Assembly, which is responsible for the formal appointment of the next Secretary-General. According to several observers, it is still premature to name a favorite, although the name of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, is regularly cited among the most prominent candidates.
Captured & Published at: 2026-07-27 15:54:14 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
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