UN kicks off race for next leader with call for candidates

Magdalena Del Valle, Bloomberg News on Nov 25, 2025

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The search for the next leader of the United Nations has officially begun.

In a letter on Tuesday, the presidents of the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council invited member states to nominate candidates to succeed Secretary General Antonio Guterres after his second five-year term expires next year.

“Our choice will send a powerful message about who we are as a United Nations and whether we truly serve all the people of the world,” Annalena Baerbock, president of the U.N. General Assembly, told reporters on Tuesday.

The selection process is set to last several months and could see many rounds of votes from the Security Council before the body’s 15 members approve a candidate to send to the General Assembly for a final vote from all member states.

New candidates can emerge at any time, with the next secretary general taking office in January 2027.

Some have called for an emphasis on female nominees, given the U.N. has never been led by a woman. There’s also an unofficial U.N. tradition that the secretary general’s nationality should rotate between regions, with Latin American and Caribbean candidates preferred this time around.

The letter encourages member states to “strongly consider nominating women candidates” and notes “the importance of regional diversity in the selection of Secretaries-General,” without stating a preference for a specific regional affiliation.

The U.S. has emphasized, however, that candidature should be “merit-based” and include people from “all regional groupings,” Deputy U.S. representative Dorothy Shea said at an Oct. 24 Security Council meeting.

Here are some people who have come forward for consideration as the next U.N. chief:

— Rafael Mariano Grossi, an Argentinian diplomat who heads of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has worked to court the Trump administration and cast himself as the pragmatic diplomat needed to keep U.S. funding flowing.

— Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president and a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, introduced tax and education reforms while in office but her criticism of China — which has veto power on the Security Council — could affect her chances.

— Rebeca Grynspan, the former vice president of Costa Rica, is an economist currently working as a senior U.N. official. She’s been critical of Trump’s tariffs for hurting the world’s poor and helped re-introduce Ukraine’s food and fertilizer exports to the world after Russia’s invasion.