United Nations, Oct 22 — With the Security Council deadlocked on the election of the secretary-general, United Arab Emirates' Lana Nusseibeh has entered the race.
The UAE formally nominated the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, making her the eighth candidate seeking to succeed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose term ends on December 31.
That brings a candidate from a country at the heart of the Iran-US conflict to the race to head the UN, which is unable to contribute to ending it.
"The UN need not lead every process, but it should be ready to be in every room where its presence has value", she said in her vision statement circulated by the UN, in what is a reference to mediation efforts outside the world organisation.
UAE has been under attack from Iran during the war started by US and Israeli bombing of Iran, and spiralling into a global energy crisis.
"I will spend more of my time near front lines, and where agreements can be found", she said.
All the seven candidates who were in the race received negative votes from at least two of the permanent members in the latest informal polling last Friday.
That rules them out, unless they can persuade a change of heart by the two unidentified permanent members.
Nusseibeh will have to convince the five permanent members to support her if she is to get elected.
Although UAE is probably the Arab state closest to Israel, its criticism of Israel over Gaza could be a factor the US would consider.
She is a yoga enthusiast who played a leading role in the International Day of Yoga celebrations at the UN while she was her country's permanent representative.
After an 11-year stint as the permanent representative ended in 2024, she became the minister of state, a post she is leaving to contest the election.
During the UAE's term as an elected member of the Security Council in 2022 and 2023, she has presided over it.
She will have to face a meeting sponsored by the General Assembly where she will speak about her vision and answer questions from member countries and civil society before her candidacy proceeds.
At the sixth straw poll last, and the first anonymously show the votes of permanent members, the top contender, UNCTAD head Rebecca Grynspan received two negative votes from the veto-wielders, as did the next two in the race, former Guyana Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birket, and International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi.
There is wide support for electing a woman to head the UN, which has been led by nine men in all of its 80-year history.
There is also a push for electing someone from the Latin American region, which hasn't had a secretary-general after Javier Perez de Cuellar ended his term in 1991.
Grynspan is from Costa Rica, Rodrigues-Birket is from Guyana, and Rossi is an Argentinian.
The last Arab secretary-general was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian, who held a single term ending in 1996 when the US opposed his re-election.