Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu --> Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions The Best Music of 2025 Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Up First Here & Now NPR Politics Podcast Featured Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Fresh Air Wild Card with Rachel Martin It's Been a Minute Planet Money Get NPR+ More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop Tiny Desk New Music Friday All Songs Considered Music Features Live Sessions The Best Music of 2025 About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Candidates vying for U.N. secretary-general role face questions Who will replace U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres when he steps down this year? Four candidates field questions from member states this week at U.N. headquarters. World Candidates vying for U.N. secretary-general role face questions April 23, 20264:45 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Michele Kelemen Candidates vying for U.N. secretary-general role face questions Listen · 3:40 3:40 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5786581/nx-s1-9741295" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Who will replace U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres when he steps down this year? Four candidates field questions from member states this week at U.N. headquarters. Sponsor Message
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The race for the next United Nations secretary-general is heating up. Candidates spent hours answering questions at the U.N. this week. They include the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and a former Chilean president. But there are still many months to go before the world body chooses a new leader, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
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MICHELLE BACHELET: Good morning, (non-English language spoken).
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Chile's former president, Michelle Bachelet, offers greetings in all six official U.N. languages as she sat down for a three-hour public interview. She was the first of four declared candidates to take part in such sessions overseen by the president of the General Assembly, former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
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ANNALENA BAERBOCK: Our choice will demonstrate whether the United Nations truly represents the more than 8 billion people around the world, who are half women and girls.
KELEMEN: The U.S. and other permanent Security Council members have the power to block candidates. And at a recent Senate hearing, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz shared Republican concerns about Bachelet, a center-left politician who was a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and the first head of U.N. Women.
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MIKE WALTZ: The conventional wisdom in - up in New York is it's never been someone from Latin America. And there's never been a woman. So therefore, it must be a Latin American woman. We have taken the position of we just need the best.
KELEMEN: There was a secretary-general from Latin America, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru. But that was decades ago. And the idea is to have a regional rotation.
ANJALI DAYAL: So the understanding is that Latin America's term is up again.
KELEMEN: That's Anjali Dayal, an associate professor of international politics at Fordham University. She says there are no written rules on how a secretary-general is selected. Nominees have to be endorsed by the Security Council before the General Assembly votes. The timing is also not set, but Antonio Guterres' term ends on January 1.
DAYAL: In an ideal world, there will be someone in place to take up the position before that (laughter). And in this very much more politically divided climate, I suspect we're going to see the deliberations run up right to the wire.
KELEMEN: And she expects more candidates to jump in. Costa Rica put forward former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, who has led U.N. trade and development. She played a key role in helping Ukraine export its grain after Russia invaded, diplomacy that took some persistence.
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REBECA GRYNSPAN: I navigated many noes until I heard a yes.
KELEMEN: A former president of Senegal, Macky Sall, is the only African in the race so far. U.N. watchers say the candidate to beat is from Argentina, Rafael Grossi, who remains at the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Dayal says normally a candidate would take a leave of absence to run.
DAYAL: To the extent that he is the front-runner right now, it's actually hard to know what the next couple of months are going to hold for the nuclear watchdog chief of the United Nations. So that's a tricky position for him to occupy.
KELEMEN: Grossi has been at the center of Iran diplomacy and says he knows how to balance the big and smaller powers.
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RAFAEL GROSSI: The art of being a good secretary-general is to keep these good balances in place.
KELEMEN: He and the other candidates faced a lot of questions about the U.N.'s current liquidity crisis, caused in part by U.S. cuts. Ambassador Waltz says he's looking for a candidate committed to cost cutting.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{1166:function(e,n,c){e.exports=c(321)},321:function(e,n,c){"use strict";c.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([c.e(1),c.e(2),c.e(3),c.e(4),c.e(82)]).then(function(e){c(3),c(1139),c(116),c(94),c(52),c(493),c(239),c(101),c(103),c(1140),c(144),c(1141),c(238),c(48),c(1142)}.bind(null,c)).catch(c.oe)}},[[1166,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();