UN secretary-general race led by Guyana's Rodrigues-Birkett

Guyana's Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett has moved to the front of the race to succeed Antonio Guterres as United Nations secretary-general after leading a second informal straw poll of candidate support.

Eight candidates, five women and three men, are running for the post as the UN faces global instability and a budget crisis. Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's ambassador to the UN and a former foreign minister, narrowly led Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, who had led the first ballot. Argentina's Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came third.

The candidate who advances to the General Assembly must win nine votes on the 15-member Security Council and avoid a veto from any of its five permanent members: the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia.

Grynspan, a former Costa Rican vice president, leads the UN trade and development body UNCTAD but took leave to campaign. Chile's Michelle Bachelet is a former president and former UN human rights chief. Ecuador's Maria Fernanda Espinosa is a former foreign minister and former president of the UN General Assembly. Grossi has led the IAEA since 2019.

The field also includes Ecuadoran diplomat Ivonne A-Baki, former Senegalese president Macky Sall and Uganda's Olara Otunnu, a former UN under-secretary general and former foreign minister. Sall is the only candidate from outside Latin America, the region that convention says should produce the next UN chief.