In this seventh straw poll Rebeca Grynspan has widened her lead with 11 ‘encourage’ votes, two more than she received in the previous straw poll. Crucially she received zero discourage votes compared to four in the previous poll, suggesting that there is no opposition to her recommendation.

The Security Council conducted its first ‘colour-coded’ straw poll of the Secretary-General candidates, differentiating the votes of the five veto-holding permanent members from the ten elected members.

The Security Council conducted its fifth straw poll of Secretary-General candidates today, but the results did not indicate that the Security Council has reached strong agreement on any candidate.

The Security Council conducted its fourth straw poll of candidates to become the next Secretary-General. Rebeca Grynspan strengthened her position as the frontrunner having increased her total “encourage” votes from 9 to 10 since the previous poll.

As world leaders gathered in New York for the opening week of the UN General Assembly, 1 for 8 Billion and the Government of Estonia convened a side event to discuss the decisive phase of the UN Secretary-General selection process on 22 September 2026.

Based on historical precedents as well as the latest developments in the Secretary-General selection process, this briefing maps out and analyses the different options available should the Security-Council be unable to make a viable recommendation.