Jewish candidate leads UN race, but path to victory unclear

Former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, an economist, United Nations executive and daughter of Holocaust survivors, is in the driver’s seat.

The road she’s driving on still isn’t the straightest, but she has the clearest path of anyone to becoming the next UN secretary-general.

The race to fill the post of term-expired Antonio Guterres has been unorthodox. Both Guterres and his predecessor, Ban Ki-moon, were clear frontrunners almost instantly.

This time around, through four straw polls, no one has been able to firmly separate themselves from the pack.

But the numbers still tell a tale. Grynspan has won three of the four secret-ballot straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council, placing second in one.

The most recent straw poll was held shortly after the UN General Assembly’s high-level debate week, which gave candidates a chance to lobby with world leaders, and Grynspan only improved her standing, coming away with 10 “encourage,” three “discourage,” and two “no opinion” votes among the 15 council members.

While it isn’t clear whether any of those three “discourage” votes were placed by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council, Grynspan’s two closest competitors, Guyana’s UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi of Argentina, tallied eight “encourage” votes, but racked up six and seven “discourage” votes, respectively, showing much wider discontent with their candidacies.

Everyone else still left in the race is deep underwater.

So, where does that leave us?

Firstly, it’s important to note that the race is not closed. New candidates could elect to join and inject some fresh ideas. But that window seems to have closed with the passing of the high-level week, and entrants thus far who weren’t there from the beginning of the campaign have fared respectably at best, disastrously at worst. No one, though, has shined.

Beyond that, “discourage” votes, even if held by a veto-holding council member, don’t signal a candidate’s death. They’ve been known on more than one occasion to be used as leverage, in exchange for promises of patronage or other perks for those countries, or for the candidates dropping out to clear a path for the frontrunner.

It’s difficult to see at this point any competitor able to close the necessary ground on Grynspan, and even harder to imagine someone from the outside swooping in to capture the council’s imagination at this late stage.

But then again, it’s hard to fathom the United Nations, antisemitic in so many different areas, elevating a Jew to its highest post.

That’s what the numbers say, though.