The selection of the United Nations Secretary-General is often popularly described as a “leadership transition.” At the United Nations, the selection process is referred to officially as a “nomination.” These terms camouflage a deeper reality: the enormous distance between procedural openness and genuine political access within the UN system.
The UN Secretary-General is the top officer of the UN Secretariat, with the responsibility to oversee the United Nations and to manage the $3.5 billion dollar budget for operations and programs. The selection of a UN Secretary-General is rigorous and competitive. This position is not simply attained, this position is won. This distinction in process matters. The highest positions in such international institutions are not assumed through merit or seniority but involve factors that include public visibility, political recognition, state endorsements, negotiation, and the skill to navigate formal and informal filters of power.
For Ukraine, such international institutions are important. While large nations such as the United States and China may not miss the United Nations were it to disappear, for the more than 190 smaller nations, the infrastructure of the UN provides expertise, capacity and a venue for networking among diplomats otherwise not available. Therefore, the 2026 selection of the next UN Secretary-General deserves closer attention.
Since 2016, the selection process for the Secretary-General has become more transparent. This year, interactive dialogues with four of the five nominated candidates were held at UN Headquarters in New York City on April 21-22, 2026, giving representatives from Member States and civil society organizations an opportunity to hear candidates’ visions and ask candidates questions directly. Candidates who participated included Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Chile), Rafael Mariano Grossi (Argentina), Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis (Costa Rica), and Macky Sall (Senegal). Since the interactive dialogues, a fifth candidate has been nominated: Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador). In an historic first, three of the five nominees are women, underscoring a point repeatedly made by women’s organizations internationally that the pattern of no woman ever leading the UN needs to be changed. Debate about the candidates begins in July 2026 and the final decision as to whom to nominate for the position will be made in the fall. The next Secretary-General begins a five-year term on January 1, 2027, after Antonio Guterres’s current term ends on December 31, 2026.
This relatively recent public dimension, the open interactive dialogues, allows the international community to observe candidates more closely and gives the process a much greater degree of transparency. However, and this point is key, visibility should not be confused with access. The fact that a process allows for greater visibility and inclusion does not mean that power inside that process has been redistributed.
The Decisive Political Gate Remains the UN Security Council
Under Chapter XV, Article 97 of the UN Charter, the Secretary-General is appointed by the UN General Assembly, however only upon the recommendation of the UN Security Council. In practice, this means that the General Assembly formalizes the appointment, but the Security Council determines who will reach the final stage. UN guidance notes that negotiations around the appointment of the Secretary-General should take place privately. Official documents, therefore, usually reflect the outcome rather than the process.
This condition is the central tension in the selection process. While the overall process now includes public dialogue, vision statements, and space for civil society engagement, the final political filter remains concentrated with the Member States serving on the Security Council, especially the five permanent members - China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States. All five permanent members must agree on the recommendation. Four of the ten non-permanent members also must support the candidate. Nine of the 15 Security Council members must be in agreement about nomination of candidate. Only then will the recommendation be given to the General Assembly.
A candidate may perform strongly in public, present a serious reform agenda, offer clarity of vision and embody the values that the UN promotes, yet, if the candidate cannot secure political acceptability within the Security Council, the path to the top post effectively narrows or closes.
This Security Council mandate does not make the public phase meaningless. On the contrary, the public phase creates visibility, an important feature of the process, raises expectations, and makes the selection more accountable to public scrutiny. However, the Security Council mandate exposes the limits of transparency when the underlying architecture of decision-making remains largely unchanged.
Although the public phase has improved, the question remains whether the political field of possibility has actually widened. The selection process reveals which candidates Member States - especially the five permanent members of the Security Council - are prepared to regard as credible: someone independent enough to lead, but not so independent as to be blocked; reform-minded enough to signal renewal, but not so disruptive as to threaten the interests of powerful states; globally legitimate, but still politically acceptable to those who hold decisive influence.
These are conditions that shape access long before the General Assembly formally appoints the Secretary-General and demonstrate that the selection process is not only administrative but fundamentally is a negotiation over the boundaries of acceptable global leadership.
Boundaries of the acceptable are especially important in 2026. During the two terms of Antonio Gueterras, the United Nations actively pursued an agenda of reform – to make the UN body more effective in response to international situations and the UN system overall more streamlined. The 2024 Summit of the Future and the 2025 UN80 Initiative are efforts through which the language of efficiency, mandates, budgets, coordination, and institutional performance are discussed. All of this is necessary and there is overall agreement that such reform must continue
However, reform cannot remain only administrative. A system may become more efficient while still preserving narrow pathways to the highest levels of power. A system may modernize procedures without changing the political culture that determines whose leadership is recognized.
The selection of the next, as well as a future Secretary-General, therefore, belongs inside the reform conversation. The process of selection reveals whether renewal is understood only as a management exercise, or also as a question of legitimacy and political access.
For Ukraine, this discussion is not abstract. Every day Ukraine lives with the consequences of the international system’s strengths and failures. Questions of aggression, accountability, war crimes, deportations, nuclear threats, conflict-related sexual violence, humanitarian response, and long-term recovery are not theoretical for Ukraine. Ukraine needs international institutions for support and to act with credibility, urgency, and political clarity.
When Antonio Gutteras was re-appointed in 2021, russia had not yet begun the second phase of its’ 12-year aggression against Ukraine. Also, Ukraine could still rely on the good intentions of the United States. At present, neither of these conditions holds true. Ukraine has no direct access to the debate inside the UN Security Council or much influence over the compromises necessary between the five permanent members to agree on the same choice of individual to lead the UN for the next term.
The Secretary-General cannot override any vote by the Security Council. The UNSC authority is absolute. The Secretary-General cannot eliminate veto politics or force consensus among major powers. However, the Secretary-General can shape the language, priorities, moral attention, and institutional urgency with which global crises are addressed. In moments of war and widespread harm, such choices matter greatly and the individual who determines such choices matters greatly, as well.
The selection of the next UN Secretary-General is not only about one person. The selection is about the nature of the leadership the system is prepared to recognize at a moment when the UN faces enormous pressures from ongoing conflicts, profound mistrust among nations, financial strain, blocked decision-making, and growing skepticism about the relevance of multilateral institutions.
The United Nations does not need just a capable administrator. The United Nations needs leadership that will provide credibility in a fractured world.
The highest office in the UN is not simply attained, it is won. Now the question is whether the position can be won only by those who are already acceptable to existing structures of political access - or by leaders who reflect the changing world the UN claims to serve.