On Thursday 5 November, the UN Security Council conducted its eighth ‘straw poll’ on Secretary-General candidates. Since the last straw poll on 30 October, Türkiye has nominated Feridun Sinirlioğlu as a candidate.

The straw poll collects the 15 members of the Security Council’s ‘encourage’, ‘discourage’ or ‘no opinion’ votes for candidates, indicating the level of support for each candidate among the council. As with the previous ballot, the Council has used a non-colour coded system, so the votes of the P5 are not distinguished from the elected members.

Rebeca Grynspan extended her lead again in the eighth poll, reaching 12 ‘encourage’ votes and reducing her ‘discourage’ votes to 3. Rafael Grossi and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett remained in second and third place, with 9 and 8 ‘encourage’ votes respectively. Lana Nusseibeh’s results remained unchanged from the previous round of voting, while new candidate Sinirlioğlu placed 6th with 3 encourage votes.

Find the full results of the straw polls here.

The results of the straw polls are not publicly released or shared with the wider UN membership. However, 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.

This eighth poll included the most recent candidate, Feridun Sinirlioğlu, despite him not yet appearing before the General Assembly as the other candidates have done. His interactive dialogue is scheduled to take place on 6 November.

This happened previously when the Security Council included Olara Otunnu in its first poll on 30 July, despite him not being available that week to take part in a dialogue. 1 for 8 Billion wrote to the Presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council at the time to raise concerns about setting a damaging precedent that would erode established standards of fairness and leave the door open for potential last minute candidates to evade scrutiny and accountability. 1 for 8 Billion recently wrote to the new PGA, H.E. Dr. Khalilur Rahman, to reiterate the expectation outlined by the previous PGA, and in line with Resolution 79/327, that candidates should present their vision to the General Assembly before being considered by the Council in a poll. It is unclear on this occasion whether Mr. Sinirlioğlu was offered the opportunity to participate in a dialogue prior to today's poll. During the selection process in 2016, all candidates, including late entrants, participated in General Assembly dialogues before being included in a Security Council poll.