As Antonio Guterres, the United Nation’ Secretary-General, will soon start clearing his desk and prepare for retirement, assessments of his tenure vary between “passable” and “mediocre”. There are those who appreciate his passionate defense of the Palestinians and critical stance on the Israel-US war against Iran. Then there are those who castigate him for precisely those controversial positions.
The real issue, however, is the decline in the status and authority of what was once seen as the world’s highest diplomatic position. The post was created when the post-World War order was edging towards the Cold War with the idea that a diplomatic buffer between the two emerging blocs could absorb shocks and prevent another armed conflict.
One key idea was to make war unless specially sanctioned by the United Nation’s Security Council practically impossible. The US-led intervention in the Korean Peninsula was the first war sanctioned by the UNSC.
But even then UN Secretary-General Trygve Li, a Norwegian trade union leader turned diplomat, was openly critical of Washington’s position, a stance chosen to show that the secretary-general wasn’t a mere rubber stamp for the Security Council. Li also adopted an independent stance during the Iran oil nationalization crisis when Great Britain threatened to invade Iran.
Interestingly, neither the US nor Britain took umbrage at Li’s stance. The unwritten rule was that the UN Secretary-General must be seen as an institution above the interests of member states. That unwritten rule was more or less observed when Dag Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat succeeded Li. That enabled Hammarskjold to take an active role in encouraging the decolonization process, especially in black Africa, a special interest that may have caused his death in a mysterious plane crash blamed on the CIA and/or Belgian mercenaries.
Hammarskjold attracted criticism for his equivocal stance on a series of tragic events, including popular uprisings in Soviet-dominated Poland and Hungary and the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956.
The Burmese diplomat U Thant, who succeeded Hammarskjold, reinterpreted the position as a basically bureaucratic one. He presided over the UN’s expansion into new domains, recruited more staff and helped organize more conferences.
Of those who succeeded Thant, only the Peruvian diplomat Javier Peres de Cuellar managed to end his tenure without controversy - not to say scandal. The Austrian Kurt Waldheim, an early supporter of the Khomeinist evolution in Iran, was exposed as a former Nazi officer involved in rounding up Jews in Greece. The Egyptian Butros Butros Ghali managed to turn almost everyone against himself by rattling some cupboard hiding skeletons and ended up with a single term. The Ghanaian Kofi Annan put up a good show at a very difficult time, but ended up sullied with the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq.
Under an understanding by member states, the secretary-general must be chosen from states other than the five that have a veto in the Security Council. Last year, the General Assembly tightened the rules and established a greater measure of transparency in the process of selecting the secretary-general.
By tradition the next secretary-general should come from outside Europe and Asia, which leaves Latin America and Africa as the two main fishing fields. Latin American nations have fielded several candidates, only two of them with the profile needed for such a post.
One is Rafael, the Argentinian director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. His problem is that Javier Milei the current ultra-right President of Argentina isn’t a fan. And Milei being a favorite of US President Donald Trump that could also mean hostility by Washington.
Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria faces a similar problem. The new Chilean President Jose Antonio Kast is from the opposite side of the political spectrum and also close to Trump, who regards Bachelet as a rabid leftie.
Africa has two key candidates.
The first is former Senegal President Macky Sall and a champion of the so-called “global south”. European nations regard Sall with misgiving if only because of his courting of Vladimir Putin in the midst of the war in Ukraine. Worse still, Sall faces the Senegalese justice on a range of allegations related to his controversial presidency. Until last month, Dakar was reluctant to back his candidacy.
The second heavy-weight African candidate is Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan economist whose resume includes service at international agencies. The cherry on top of that resume is a brief friendship with former US President Bill Clinton in bygone days. The question is whether Uganda is able to mobilize support for Otunnu beyond its own borders.
Some members are canvassing for the selection of a woman as secretary-general. The idea was first raised with former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto as the favorite. But she scripted herself out by insisting she would try to regain the premiership of Pakistan. She was assassinated on her way to reaching her goal in Islamabad.
But what about a dark horse emerging before the General Assembly meets in New York next month?
Two women are talked about.
One putative candidate could be Audrey Azoulay, the Moroccan-French former Director-General of UNESCO who also served as France’s Minister of Culture. She could win support from both the African Union and the European Union, not to mention the Arab League. However, her dual nationality may pose a problem. In any case, she needs to be nominated by Rabat or Paris or both.
Rebecca Grynspan Mayufis is the other possibility talked about. As a diplomat from Costa Rica - the least controversial nation in the New World and a woman - she could benefit from broad consensus.
Even then a rabbit may be brought out of the magician’s hat at the last minute. That has happened before.
Regardless of who gets the job, the real issue is what the job is for? Whatever his shortcomings, Guterres wasn’t even consulted about any of the big events during his tenure, let alone offered a tripod at the high table. Targeting him for personal attacks is unfair to say the least.
What can the secretary-general do when veto-holding nations, such as Russia and US, start wars, or like China, threaten to do so?
If the job is to be part of the décor, as was the case with Kofi Annan, any photogenic multilingual man or woman would do. And if managerial skills are needed to run a sprawling and costly gravy train, one must look beyond diplomats to a new younger generation of business leaders.
On the eve of the General Assembly, the world and the UN with it are still moving toward the unknown.
