The structure of modern international relations is breaking down. As António Guterres approaches the end of his second term, the United Nations faces its worst crisis since the Cold War. The world is no longer simply divided among several major powers. It is deeply fractured.
Wars in Eastern Europe and Gaza have exposed serious legal, moral, and political divides between the Global North and the Global South. At the same time, competition for critical energy and technology minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths has turned many developing countries into arenas for global rivalry.
On top of this, the economic and technological split between Washington and Beijing has paralyzed the UN Security Council and made traditional multilateralism weak and ineffective.
In this dangerous climate, the upcoming election of the tenth UN Secretary-General is more than a routine change of leadership. It is a major test of whether international institutions can survive a return to open power politics and rebuild trust in collective security.
At the center of this crisis is a basic structural flaw. The United Nations was built on the principle of state sovereignty written into its founding Charter. Because of this, it has no independent police or enforcement power and depends on funding from the same superpowers that often ignore its decisions. The war in Gaza has made this weakness clear.
A campaign backed by a superpower has been able to bomb hospitals, kill thousands of children, and destroy vital infrastructure, while the United Nations could only issue statements and had no power to enforce international humanitarian law.
In addition, the veto power given to the winners of the Second World War in 1945 has been abused since the Cold War. It allows the permanent members of the Security Council to protect themselves and their allies from accountability. This paralysis is made worse by a serious financial crisis.
Unilateral cuts and the refusal to pay dues by major powers like the United States have weakened essential humanitarian, peacekeeping, and development work around the world.
To address these threats, the next Secretary-General must have the courage to challenge superpower impunity, push for real veto reform, find new sources of funding to end financial pressure, and build a United Nations fit for the twenty-first century.
In this context, the 2026 election carries special historical weight for Africa. For twenty years, since Ghana’s Kofi Annan left office in 2006, no African has led the Secretariat. This gap continues even though Africa has fifty-four member states, making up more than twenty-eight percent of the UN General Assembly.
Africa also hosts most peacekeeping missions and faces the worst impacts of financial inequality, debt, and climate change. To assert its central role in world affairs, Africa must break through these barriers and demand that global leadership reflect current realities instead of the power balance set in 1945.
To do that, Africa must understand how UN diplomacy works. Under Article 97 of the United Nations Charter, the General Assembly appoints the Secretary-General only after the Security Council makes a recommendation.
Beyond the Charter, there is also an informal practice of rotating the position among regions. This has created a direct contest between Latin America’s claim and Africa’s demand for leadership.
The candidates for the 2026 election include respected diplomats, experts, and former leaders, each with a different vision for the Secretariat. Rafael Mariano Grossi of Argentina, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, brings strong crisis management skills. He has dealt with nuclear security risks in war zones such as Zaporizhzhia and with difficult nuclear talks with Iran.
Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet combines presidential experience with top multilateral experience as the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She also has strong global support to become the first woman Secretary-General in the organization’s eighty-one-year history.
Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, has deep knowledge of international trade, commodity markets, and reforming global development banks. Former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa has unmatched experience in UN procedure from her time as President of the UN General Assembly.
Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana focuses on the challenges of small island states and on engagement with the Security Council. Outside the group of career diplomats, former Senegalese President Macky Sall presents himself as a tested statesman with executive experience at both national and continental levels.
The story of Macky Sall’s candidacy shows how complex UN nominations and African politics can be. On March 2, 2026, the Permanent Mission of Burundi to the United Nations officially submitted a letter nominating the former Senegalese president.
It is unusual for one country to nominate a person who is not its citizen. However, Burundi was chairing the African Union Assembly at the time, and many saw this as an effort to present Sall as Africa’s agreed candidate. When Burundi then sought quick approval from the continent through a silent procedure in the African Union Bureau, major countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, and Rwanda, raised formal objections.
They argued that major international candidacies must go through full review by the established African Union Ministerial Committee on Candidatures instead of a fast-track process.
This debate made one point clear: if Africa wants to challenge the system created after 1945, the African Union must speak with one united voice and base its diplomacy on real consensus in order to project strength on the world stage.
Assessing Macky Sall as a leading candidate requires looking at both his record in global diplomacy and his record at home. Internationally, his credentials as a negotiator are strong. As President of Senegal from 2012 to 2024 and Chair of the African Union in 2022, he worked at the highest levels of diplomacy.
During the Ukraine war, he traveled to Moscow to meet Russian leaders and successfully negotiated access to grain and fertilizer for poor countries facing severe food shortages. He was also a leading voice for reform of the global financial system. He pushed for debt relief and fair climate finance and led the campaign that won the African Union a permanent seat in the G20.
At the same time, his final years in office at home were marked by political tension. This included legal action against opposition figures, firm responses to public protests, and a controversial attempt to postpone the 2024 presidential election. Although Senegal’s Constitutional Council rejected the delay and the election took place peacefully, the episode drew strong criticism.
Real statecraft, however, is about putting national interest above internal divisions. This was demonstrated by Senegal’s current leadership. After President Bassirou Diomaye Faye won the election, defeating Sall’s political group after being released from prison shortly before voting, the new government chose to put the national interest first.
Instead of opposing his predecessor’s international ambitions, President Faye gave full support to Sall’s campaign for the United Nations. President Faye instructed the entire Senegalese diplomatic service, including the foreign ministry and all embassies abroad, to actively campaign for Sall in capitals around the world.
This decision was a major act of political realism and institutional maturity. By separating party rivalry from the country’s broader global interests, Faye showed that national interest, national dignity, and global influence matter more than domestic political fights. This sets an important example for governance in Africa.
As diplomats and member states assess candidates in this divided period, they must apply clear and essential standards for leading the Secretariat. The most important is strategic independence in diplomacy combined with the ability to mediate.
The next Secretary-General must have the political weight to deal directly with the five permanent members of the Security Council without being controlled by any one group. The leader must also combine practical politics with a firm defense of the UN Charter, balancing the compromises needed to keep warring parties talking with a strong commitment to international law, state sovereignty, and basic human rights.
The job also requires strong executive authority, the ability to command the attention of world leaders during major crises, and a serious plan to stabilize UN finances. This means protecting the organization’s work from selective funding cuts by building independent funding sources and broad global partnerships.
The final decision on the Secretary-General rests with the fifteen-member UN Security Council, where the five permanent members—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia—each hold absolute veto power. History shows that a candidate can have strong support in the General Assembly and among fourteen Security Council members and still be blocked by a single permanent member.
The clearest example occurred in November 1996 during the bid for a second term by Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He had the support of fourteen Security Council members and the united backing of Africa. But the United States, under domestic political pressure during President Clinton’s re-election campaign and disagreements over UN operations in Bosnia and Rwanda, used its veto against him.
This remains the only time in UN history that a sitting Secretary-General was denied a second term by one veto. The Clinton administration criticized Boutros Boutros-Ghali for acting independently of Washington and resisting direct instructions, especially for his ideas in An Agenda for Peace and his call for independent UN funding. Instead of losing Africa’s turn in the regional rotation, member states remained deadlocked until they agreed on Ghana’s Kofi Annan.
Today, the global situation is even more complex, and it requires a candidate who can manage the different priorities of the five permanent members. Western powers place strong emphasis on governance, human rights, and institutional reform. Non-Western powers such as China and Russia focus more on state sovereignty, non-interference, and strong support for the Global South.
Macky Sall’s active engagement with Beijing, Moscow, and non-aligned capitals during his time as the African Union Chair gives him strong influence in the East and South. His long experience in French-speaking diplomacy and economic policy also gives him important connections in Western capitals.
He knows how to speak about equal sovereignty to the Global South while maintaining working relations with Western powers. This positions him well to bridge the growing divide inside the Security Council.
The 2026 election is a turning point for the future of global cooperation. The international system cannot afford a caretaker leader who cannot stand up to major powers. It also cannot continue with the abuse of a veto system created in 1945 that allows selective impunity while key operations suffer from a lack of funding.
For Africa and the wider Global South, this election is essential to demand that leadership of the international order reflects the world as it is today. Africa represents a large part of humanity, holds the key natural resources for the future global economy, and has the diplomatic experience needed to mediate complex conflicts.
Macky Sall is a tested African leader with presidential experience, proven skills in international mediation, and the full support of a united Senegal under President Faye.
The African continent, through the African Union, must come together behind this candidacy, use its combined voting power, and strongly support an African leader who can drive structural reform, resist geopolitical pressure, and restore balance and fairness to the United Nations.
By Twiine Mansio Charles
CEO & Founder, TheThireye Consult (U) Ltd.
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