Eronda
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- Dec 16, 2025
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Uganda’s Olara Otunnu has risen to third position in the race for UN Secretary-General, despite retaining five “encourage” votes in the latest Security Council straw poll.
Otunnu received five “encourage”, seven “discourage” and three “no opinion” votes in Friday’s confidential poll, according to results obtained by PassBlue and verified by diplomatic sources.
His five positive votes are unchanged from the second poll on August 21. However, he has moved up the field because other candidates recorded higher numbers of “discourage” votes.
Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan led the latest poll with nine “encourage” votes, followed by Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett with eight.
Otunnu was level on five “encourage” votes with International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi of Argentina and former Senegalese President Macky Sall.
Grossi received eight “discourage” votes, while Sall received nine. Otunnu recorded seven.
The latest figures therefore place Otunnu among the leading candidates, although he remains four votes short of the nine “encourage” votes required for a Security Council recommendation.
A candidate must also avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The confidential ballot does not reveal whether any of the candidates’ “discourage” votes came from the permanent members, as the Council has not yet introduced colour-coded ballots distinguishing their votes.
From two votes to five
Otunnu’s latest standing represents a marked improvement from the first straw poll on July 30, when he received only two “encourage” votes.
He doubled that support to five in the August 21 poll and retained the five votes in Friday’s ballot.
The shift in his relative standing, however, should not be interpreted as an increase in his latest level of support. Rather, it reflects changes in the distribution of support and opposition among the other candidates.
The latest poll also underlines the lack of consensus in the race, with no candidate yet securing the combination of broad support and acceptance by the permanent members needed to move the process towards a formal recommendation.
Otunnu and the ‘Otunnu Formula’
Otunnu has a unique connection to the process now being used to assess his candidacy.
In 1981, while serving as Uganda’s ambassador to the United Nations and president of the Security Council, he introduced the informal straw-ballot system used to gauge support for candidates for Secretary-General.
The mechanism later became associated with the “Otunnu Formula”.
More than four decades later, Otunnu is competing in a race being assessed through the system he helped establish.
Uganda formally nominated Otunnu for the UN’s top diplomatic post earlier this year. He previously served as UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 1998 to 2005.
The latest poll also saw former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet receive one “encourage”, 11 “discourage” and three “no opinion” votes, while former Ecuadorian ambassador Ivonne A-Baki received no “encourage” votes.
Former Ecuadorian foreign minister María Fernanda Espinosa received three “encourage” votes.
The next straw poll could be held after the UN General Assembly’s high-level week ends on September 28.
The current Secretary-General, António Guterres, is due to leave office at the end of 2026, after which the Security Council will recommend a candidate for appointment by the 193-member General Assembly.
Read Also: https://www.jamiiforums.com/threads...otunnu-for-un-secretary-general-race.2457152/
Source: Chimp Reports.
