Diplomats from Argentina, Costa Rica in the running for U.N. secretary-general.
| Autor | Scruggs, Gregory |
In the race for what has been called the "most difficult job in the world," that of UN secretary-general, Susana Malcorra of Argentina and Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica are vying for the position. At the end of this year, current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's two-term mandate will come to an end. Before his departure, the UN Security Council is vetting candidates to decide who will hold the world's top diplomatic post.
Malcorra, Ban Ki-moon's former chief of staff, was recently appointed minister of foreign affairs by Argentina's new president, Mauricio Macri, and is seen as an insider who knows how to work the levers of the UN bureaucracy (NotiSur Dec. 4, 2015, and Jan. 29, 2016). Figueres, who stepped down as head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July, is running on the strength of the successful COP 21 conference last December, which delivered the Paris Agreement on climate change (NotiCen, Aug. 4, 2016).
The two Latin American candidates aspire to be the first secretary-general from the region since Peru's Javier Perez de Cuellar served two terms, from 1982 to 1991 (NotiSur June 17, 1994, and Oct. 14, 1994). However, under an informal system known as "regional rotation," there is a strong possibility that the job will go to a candidate from Eastern Europe, a region that has not yet led the UN. At the same time, a growing chorus has called for the UN to elect a woman for the first time, something that would boost the candidacies of Malcorra and Figueres.
The next secretary-general will face a host of challenges, including the ongoing civil war in Syria, the rise of the Islamic State, scandals over UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, and a flow of migrants that has created the world's largest refugee crisis since World War II. For Latin America and the Caribbean, the main issue concerns the UN's role in Haiti's cholera epidemic (NotiCen, Nov. 18, 2010, and March 28, 2013).
As established by the UN Charter, the election of a secretary-general is somewhat opaque and rests largely in the hands of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the P5, who hold vetoes. However, with a push from the UN General Assembly and civil society groups, this year's election process has been the most transparent in the world body's 70-year history, with resumes, public debates, and press conferences shedding light on what is normally a secretive process (NotiCen, Aug. 4, 2016).
Thus far, the UN Security Council...
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