On Friday, 16 October, the UN Security Council conducted its sixth ‘straw poll’ on Secretary-General candidates. For the first time in this selection process, colour-coding has been introduced to differentiate the votes of the permanent five veto-holding members (the P5) of the Council from the ten non-permanent members of the Council (the E10).

The 15 members of the Security Council vote ‘encourage’, ‘discourage’ or ‘no opinion’ on their ballot, indicating the level of support for each candidate among the council.

Today’s results show no clearly viable candidate to be recommended by the Security Council at this stage, with all three frontrunners receiving 2 ‘discourage’ votes from the P5.

Rebeca Grynspan continued to hold first place with 9 ‘encourage’ votes (3 of which came from the P5). Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett came second with 8 ‘encourage’ votes (3 of which came from the P5), with Rafael Grossi following closely behind in third (also receiving 8 ‘encourage’ votes, but only 2 from the P5).

Find the full results of the straw polls here.

As in the 2016 process, the straw poll results are not publicly released or formally transmitted to the PGA. The almost immediate leaking of the results online reflects a sense of frustration with the Council’s lack of transparency. You can find out more about how the Security Council straw polls work in our Ultimate Guide to the Selection Process.