Michelle Bachelet exits UN chief race after low poll support

Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet ends bid to be the first woman to lead the United Nations.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet speaks during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, China, on May 14, 2017 [File: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images]

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has withdrawn from the race to become the next United Nations secretary-general, ending her bid to become the first woman to lead the world body in its 80-year history.

Bachelet, 74, announced her decision on Saturday in a video posted on Instagram. “Today I announced that I have decided not to continue with my candidacy for the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations,” she said.

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She added that she did not regret “having taken on this great challenge” even if “the time was not right” for the kind of candidacy she had sought to represent.

Her withdrawal comes after the UN Security Council released the third informal straw poll, held on Friday, in which she received just one “encourage” vote, 11 “discourage” votes and three “no opinion” votes, compared with six encouraging votes in July and two in August.

The same poll put Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, currently head of the UN’s Trade and Development body, in the lead with nine encouraging votes, closely followed by Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett with eight.

Other candidates still in the running include the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Rafael Grossi, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Ecuadorian diplomat Maria Fernanda Espinosa.

To be recommended by the Security Council, a candidate needs at least nine of its 15 members to vote in favour and must avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – before a final vote in the General Assembly.

Bachelet was nominated by Chile in February with backing from Brazil and Mexico. Only one Latin American, Peru’s Javier Perez de Cuellar, has ever held the UN’s top job, and an unofficial rotation among regions had put Latin America in line for this cycle.

Whoever succeeds Antonio Guterres, the current secretary-general, whose term ends on December 31, will take charge of an organisation grappling with dynamic crises.

Guterres warned member states earlier this year that the UN faced “imminent financial collapse”, with $1.57bn in unpaid dues piled up by the end of 2025 and only a fraction of countries fully paid up.

World leaders converge on New York next week for the General Assembly’s annual high-level session, opening Tuesday under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation”.

Guterres warned that geopolitical divides among major powers – some of whom “themselves violate international law and sit in the Security Council” – have left the body deadlocked on Gaza , Ukraine and other crises, a dysfunction the still-unresolved race to succeed him will do little to fix on its own.

智利前总统米歇尔·巴切莱特放弃了成为首位领导联合国的女性的努力。

2017年5月14日，智利前总统米歇尔·巴切莱特在中国北京举行的“一带一路”国际合作高峰论坛上发表讲话。[图片来源：Lintao Zhang/Getty Images]

智利前总统米歇尔·巴切莱特退出联合国秘书长竞选，结束了她成为该世界机构80年历史上首位女性领导人的努力。

74岁的巴切莱特周六在Instagram上发布的一段视频中宣布了她的决定。她说：“今天我宣布，我决定不再继续竞选联合国秘书长一职。”

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她补充说，即使“时机不对”，她也不后悔“接受了这项巨大的挑战”，尽管她所寻求代表的那种候选人身份“并不合适”。

在她宣布退出之前，联合国安理会公布了周五举行的第三次非正式民意调查结果，结果显示她只获得了 1 票“鼓励”、11 票“反对”和 3 票“无意见”，而 7 月份她获得了 6 票鼓励，8 月份获得了 2 票鼓励。

同一项民意调查显示，哥斯达黎加的丽贝卡·格林斯潘（Rebeca Grynspan，现任联合国贸易和发展机构负责人）以 9 票领先，紧随其后的是圭亚那的卡罗琳·罗德里格斯-伯克特（Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett），获得 8 票。

其他仍在角逐的候选人包括国际原子能机构的拉斐尔·格罗西、塞内加尔前总统马基·萨勒和厄瓜多尔外交官玛丽亚·费尔南达·埃斯皮诺萨。

要想获得安全理事会的推荐，候选国需要至少 15 个成员国中的 9 个投票赞成，并且在大会进行最终投票之前，必须避免 5 个常任理事国——中国、法国、俄罗斯、英国和美国——中的任何一个投否决票。

巴切莱特于今年2月由智利提名，并得到了巴西和墨西哥的支持。此前，只有一位拉丁美洲人——秘鲁的哈维尔·佩雷斯·德奎利亚尔——担任过联合国最高领导人，而根据非正式的区域轮换制度，拉丁美洲原本应该在本届任期内担任此职。

现任秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯的任期将于12月31日结束，无论谁接替他，都将领导一个正在应对各种动态危机的组织。

古特雷斯今年早些时候警告成员国，联合国面临“迫在眉睫的财政崩溃”，到 2025 年底，未缴纳的会费将高达 15.7 亿美元，而只有一小部分国家全额缴纳了会费。

世界各国领导人将于下周齐聚纽约，参加联合国大会年度高级别会议。会议将于周二开幕，主题为“重建信任，引领转型”。

古特雷斯警告说，大国之间的地缘政治分歧——其中一些国家“本身就违反国际法，却仍是安理会成员”——导致安理会在加沙、乌克兰和其他危机问题上陷入僵局，而这场尚未解决的继任者之争本身也无助于解决这一功能失调问题。