On January 1, 2027, a new Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization, UNO will take over from Antonio Guterres as his five-year second tenure will expire on December 31, 2026.
At present, six candidates are officially in the running to succeed Guterres who will now out on January 1, 2027.
WITHIN NIGERIA takes a look at the personalities of the six candidates in the race.
Veronica Michelle Bachelet(Chile)
Veronica Michelle Bachelet was born on 29 September 1951. She is a Chilean politician and has served as the 33rd and 35th president of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018.
Before her presidency, on 11 March 2000, virtually unknown at the time, Bachelet was appointed Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos. She conducted an in-depth study of the public healthcare system which resulted in the creation of the AUGE plan a few years later. During her tenure, she was given the challenging task of eliminating the waiting lists in the overburdened public hospital system within the first 100 days of Lagos’s government.
Although she was successful in reducing the waiting lists by 90%, she was unable to completely eliminate the man and offered her resignation, which was promptly rejected by the President. Bachelet authorized the free distribution of the Morning-after-bill pill for victims of sexual abuse which sparked controversy.
Veronica remains first and the only to hold the presidency in Chile. She was re-elected in December 2013 with over 62% of the vote, having previously received 54% in 2006, making her the first president of Chile to be re-elected since 1932.
However, after her second term, she served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022.
She was appointed as the first executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
By and large, on 23 September 2025, Bachelet was nominated by Chilean president Gabriel Boric to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations upon the end of Antonio Guterres’ tenure in 2026.
Rafael Mariano Grossi (Argentina)
Rafael Mariano Grossi was born on 29 January 1961. He is an Argentine diplomat. He has also been serving as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 3 December 2019.
He was formerly the Argentine ambassador to Austria, concurrent with Slovenia, Slovakia and International Organisations based in Vienna (2013–2019).
She is 6th Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Grossi began working in nuclear policy during a collaboration between the Argentine foreign service and INVAP.
Between 1997 and 2000, he was the president of the United Nations Group of Government Experts on the International Weapons Registry, and later became adviser to the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations on disarmament.
However, from 2002 to 2007, he was chief of staff to Director General Mohamed ElBaradei the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis(Costa Rica)
Rebecca Grynspan Mayufis was born on 14 December 1955. She is a Costa Rican economist who has been serving as Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) since 13 September 2021.
She previously served as Ibero-American Secretary-General from 2014–2021 and as a UN Under-Secretary-General.
She also served as the Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2010–2014.
In any case, Grynspan previously served as Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, appointed to the position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2005.
She was the Vice President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.
Macky Sall (Senegal)
Macky Sall was a Senegalese. He was born on 11 December 1961. He served as the fourth president of Senegal from 2012 to 2024.
Sall was also the eighth Prime Minister from 2004 to 2007, under President Abdoulaye Wade.
He also served as the president of the National Assembly from 2007 to 2008.
He joined Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) in the late 1980s.
Sall became Secretary-General of the PDS Regional Convention in Fatick in 1998 and served as the PDS National Secretary in charge of Mines and Industry.
He was actively involved in the “Sopi” campaign which brought Wade to power in the 2000 Senegalese presidential election.
He was Special Advisor for Energy and Mines to President Abdoulaye Wade from 6 April 2000 to 12 May 2003, as well as Director-General of the Petroleum Company of Senegal (Société des Pétroles du Sénégal, PETROSEN) from 13 December 2000 to 5 July 2001.
He became Minister of Mines, Energy and Hydraulics on 12 May 2001, replacing Abdoulaye Bathily who had been appointed Vice-President of the National Assembly.
However, he was promoted to the rank of Minister of State, while retaining his portfolio, on 6 November 2002.
He additionally became the Mayor of Fatick on 1 June 2002.
At the moment, Sall is the only African in the race.
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador)
Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces was born September 7, 1964.
She is an Ecuadorian Linguist, poet, and diplomat.
She is currently the Executive Director of GWL Voices, an NGO dedicated to achieving a gender-equal multilateral system.
She served as an advisor on biodiversity and indigenous peoples (1999–2005) and was the regional director for South America from 2005 to 2007 at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Again Espinosa Garcés was Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs twice, from 2007 to 2008 and then from 2017 to 2018. She also served as ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from 2008 to 2009 and Geneva (2014–2017), and as Ecuador’s Minister of National Defense (2012–2014).
Nevertheless, in June 2018, she was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 73rd session by a two-thirds vote of the member states.
Espinosa Garcés became the fourth woman in the seventy-three-year history of the United Nations to be elected President of the General Assembly. Besides her political career, she is also a poet and essayist.
Carolyn Allison Rodrigues-Birkett
(Guyana)
Carolyn Birkett was born 16 September 1973. She is a Guyanese politician.
Carolyn was also appointed permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations in 2020. She previously served as Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO Liaison Office in Geneva from 2017 to 2020.
She was also Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana from 2008 to 2015.
On 15 June 2026, the government of President Irfaan Ali nominated Rodrigues to contend in the 2026 United Nations Secretary-General selection.
Rodrigues is the youngest contender in the coveted UN Secretary-General selection of 2026.
