Note: This article includes a lot of names that might not be familiar to
readers. I’ve included a glossary of who these people are at the end of the
article.
With the selection of the next UN
Secretary General about a year away, and a lot of speculation as to the
succession of Ban Ki-moon going on in UN-centric publications, I figured it was
high time I threw my hat into the ring. When I first began writing this it was
intended to be an evaluation of the potential candidates, their background,
qualifications, and electability. However, I quickly realized I simply don’t
know enough about most of them to fill an entire article. What I feel compelled
to address instead is the media coverage the process has received. The press
has never been particularly good at covering the UN’s internal politics; I
suspect this is partly due to a lack of interest from the general public, and
partly due to a lack of transparency on the part of the Organization. What’s
going on here, however, is an all time low.
Let’s begin with some background. There
has been a long-standing agreement that there should be a geographic rotation
of the country of origin the Secretary General. By rights, the next SG should
be from Eastern Europe, since the EEG is the only one of the five regional
groups to have never produced a Secretary General. However, it seems unlikely
that in the current political climate, especially with what’s going on in the
Ukraine at the moment, that any Eastern European candidate would be acceptable
both to the US and the EU on one hand, and to Russia on the other.
Additionally, there is a growing
movement in the press putting forward the idea that the next Secretary General
should be a woman. I don’t disagree, but there is nothing to suggest that this
movement has any meaningful support among the Member States. There are a number
of women who have publicly expressed an interest in the position: Irina Bokova,
Vesna Pusić, and Helen Clark. All three are eminently qualified, but it’s not
clear whether any of them are politically viable. What is clear is that none of
them will receive special consideration because of their gender.
Yet this impression has
significantly coloured speculation by the parts of the press that support it. In
many articles on the subject, it seems as if they simply decided to list off
some women who seem like the could be qualified to be Secretary General,
without any regard as to whether or not a candidacy would have even the
remotest chance of succeeding and whether or not they are actually interested.
The most glaring example of this is
the supposed candidacy of Dilma Rousseff. Very superficially she seems to fit
the bill. If an Eastern European SG isn’t possible, Latin America seems like
the most likely alternative, and she is a significant, female, diplomatic
figure from that part of the world. However, there is nothing to suggest that
she’s actually interested in the job, especially after winning re-election as President
of Brazil last October. More importantly, her position on the NSA affair, particularly
as it pertains to the United Nations, means she would have no chance in hell of
getting past an American veto.
Other lists include names like
Christine Lagarde, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Michelle Bachelet, Kristalina
Georgieva, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt. They are all obviously qualified
professionally, but speculation as to their candidacies has no basis in
reality. It’s always been understood that the SG should not come from a
permanent member of the Security Council, so Lagarde is out of the question.
Johnson-Srileaf and Bachelet don’t leave office as Presidents of Liberia and
Chile respectively until after the next SG’s term of office will start, not to
mention the fact that there is no way the Organization will choose another
African so soon after Kofi Annan. Georgieva’s supposed candidacy casually
ignores that she would have to be nominated by the Bulgarian government, who
have already nominated Irina Bokova. Thorning-Schmidt is the most reasonable of
these, but there’s no mention of the fact that a candidacy was entirely
dependent on her not winning re-election in June, or the fact that she would
probably be subject to a Russian veto.
Speculation in the press is one
thing. Hypotheticals can be interesting, informative and useful. What’s going
on here however is pure fantasy, and I have no idea why it’s happening.
Glossary of names
Irina Bokova
Bulgarian
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria
1996–1997
Ambassador of Bulgaria to the
Francophonie 2006–2009
Director General of UNESCO 2009–Present
Vesna Pusić
Croatian
Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Croatia 2011–Present
Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia
2012–Present
Helen Clark
New Zealander
Prime Minister of New Zealand 1999–2008
Administrator of the United Nations
Development Programme 2009–Present
Dilma Rousseff
Brazilian
President of Brazil 2011–Present
Christine Lagarde
French
Minister of Finance of France 2007–2011
Managing Director of the IMF 2011–Present
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Liberian
President of Liberia 2006–Present
Michelle Bachalet
Chilean
President of Chile 2006–2010
Executive Director of UN Women 2010–2013
President of Chile 2014–Present
Kristalina Georgieva
Bulgarian
European Commissioner (various
portfolios) 2010–Present
Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Danish
Member of the European Parliament
1999–2004
Prime Minister of Denmark 2011–2015
