The job of the United Nations Secretary-General is often described as the most difficult one on earth. As the race begins to identify António Guterres’s successor at the end of 2026, after a decade marked by global pandemics, financial shortfalls and wars that have strained the very purpose of the UN, the office looks more like a poisoned chalice than ever. 

Whoever steps into his shoes will inherit an institution under severe strain and a planet on fire. It is cash-strapped, politically paralysed and reputationally battered. For years the world body -- created from the ashes of World War II to save “succeeding generations from the scourge of war” -- has been a helpless spectator to conflicts it can neither prevent nor resolve.

Gaza has for more than two years been a killing field -- a grim 21st-century echo of Auschwitz -- where a tenuous ceasefire is faltering. Ukraine remains a battlefield without an endgame. Sudan is a humanitarian catastrophe on endless replay. Climate disasters multiply and pandemics lurk.

On Life Support 

The next UNSG will inherit a multilateral system on life support. The organisation’s finances are in their weakest shape in decades. Major donors, led by Donald Trump’s United States consumed by MAGA madness and disinterested in foreign aid, have slashed contributions. Britain, once a dependable supporter, has turned inward. The Netherlands and others have followed. UN agencies are scrambling to stay afloat by delaying programmes, freezing recruitment and hoping crisis fatigue does not turn into collapse. 

Yet interest in the world’s most thankless job has rarely been higher. As procedure dictates, the Security Council and General Assembly presidents issued a joint letter formally inviting nominations for the position a few days ago. With presidents, prime ministers, technocrats and UN insiders already manoeuvring -- some subtly, others covertly -- two major questions dominate: can the next SG rescue an institution in freefall, and after eight decades of male leadership, will the UN finally choose a woman?

Boxed By Geopolitics 

Guterres has spent his final years trying to soften the landing with his UN80 reforms, a tidy euphemism for tightening bolts on a sinking vessel. His successor will face brutal decisions -- merging agencies, trimming mandates and rethinking entire pillars of the system.

Peace and security, the organisation’s raison d’être, offer little comfort. The Security Council, once a forum for compromise, has devolved into a battleground for the United States, Russia and China. On Ukraine, Gaza and many smaller conflicts, the veto powers have turned the chamber into a trench of procedural warfare. Guterres tried moral persuasion, issuing sombre warnings on climate, pandemics and the erosion of diplomacy, but geopolitics routinely boxed him in.

The next SG will need to return to basics: mediation before crises erupt and preventive diplomacy before brushfires become infernos. Yet the role contains an inherent contradiction -- the SG is expected to be bold, but not bold enough to irritate any of the P5 capitals. A single miscalculation that angers Washington, Moscow or Beijing can sideline the world’s top diplomat for the rest of their term. The UN demands courage, then punishes those who display it. 

Convention Of Regional Rotation

By the convention of regional rotation, Latin America and the Caribbean are next in line for the post, the region having been absent from the top job since Peru’s Javier Pérez de Cuéllar left in 1991. But both the United States and Russia have rejected this expectation, insisting on a “merit-based” competition open to all. For GRULAC (Group of Latin American Countries) capitals, this feels like a diplomatic ambush; for candidates elsewhere, it is an open invitation. (It remains to be seen whether India will attempt another bid after Shashi Tharoor’s close second-place finish in 2006.) 

Even so, Latin America and the Caribbean have formidable contenders. Chile’s former president and UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, recently honoured with the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, has emerged as a frontrunner. Costa Rica has formally nominated Rebeca Grynspan, the UNCTAD chief and seasoned behind-the-scenes negotiator. Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign minister and former head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America, is being actively discussed. Barbados’s charismatic Prime Minister Mia Mottley, whose climate advocacy has electrified the developing world, is widely seen as a powerful possibility, though she remains publicly circumspect.

Beyond the region, Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed, Guterres’s deputy for nearly a decade, is discreetly testing the waters. Male candidates are circling as well: Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Serbia’s Vuk Jeremić, who ran in 2016; and several Europeans and Middle Eastern figures who prefer to keep their ambitions quiet.

Glass Ceiling For Women

Hovering over all these manoeuvres is the question energising the entire system: will the 10th Secretary-General finally be a woman? More than 90 countries openly endorse the idea, and civil-society networks have turned it into a political crusade. This year’s General Assembly delivered an unambiguous message: after 80 years and nine male SGs, the absence of a woman at the helm is not just embarrassing, it is indefensible. Former contenders from 2016 -- Helen Clark, Irina Bokova, Susana Malcorra -- have spoken openly about the double standards they faced. 

But everything ultimately turns on the Permanent Members of the Security Council. With Washington and Moscow putting “merit” ahead of gender, two of the P5 have stepped away from championing a “Madam SG.” China remains inscrutable. France and the UK may support a woman in principle, but are likely to go by the flow.

The selection process itself is caught between openness and old habits. Since 2016, candidates must undergo public hearings and submit vision statements. But when the General Assembly sought deeper transparency this year, the P5 closed ranks to block bolder reforms. A proposal for stronger civil-society engagement was quietly shunned. What survives is a hybrid system — outwardly more transparent than the opaque backroom dealings of earlier decades, yet still decisively shaped by the five capitals.

Needed, A Political Gymnast

On 1 January 2027, whoever occupies the Secretary-General's office at Turtle Bay will need to be a political gymnast -- bold without being confrontational, principled without being provocative, efficient without threatening entrenched interests.

The choice of the next SG will determine whether the UN regains relevance or slides further into insignificance. A woman leader would not only break a glass ceiling; it would show the UN retains the capacity for renewal. A male candidate seen as a P5 compromise would confirm fears that global leadership remains a private club for the powerful.

If the new occupant revives a multilateral system now gasping for air, they will be remembered as the steward of a new chapter. If not, the UN’s decline will accelerate -- and the poisoned chalice will await the next brave hand willing to grasp it. 

(The writer is a former UN spokesperson. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at edmathew@gmail.com / tweets @edmathew)