Explained: how the UN chooses its Secretary-General

António Guterres’s second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations ends on 31 December 2026, and his successor is due to take office on 1 January. The choice is made in two steps, both set out in a single sentence of the UN Charter.

What the Charter says

Article 97 says the Secretary-General “shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council”. In practice the Security Council does the choosing: it sends the General Assembly one name, and the Assembly has always approved it. The Charter does not fix the length of the term; five years has been the custom since the first appointment in 1946.

Step one: the straw polls

The 15 members of the Security Council hold a series of informal, secret ballots called straw polls. In each one, every member marks each candidate “encourage”, “discourage” or “no opinion”. The results are not officially published, but they are widely reported.

The polls matter because of the rules for the formal vote that follows. To be recommended, a candidate needs at least nine votes in favour and no veto from any of the five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. A “discourage” from a permanent member in a straw poll is therefore a warning of a possible veto.

For most of the process all members use the same ballot paper, so nobody can tell whether a “discourage” came from a permanent member. In the 2026 race, the permanent members have used coloured ballots since the sixth poll on 16 October, so their votes can be told apart.

Where the 2026 race stands

In the sixth poll, according to PassBlue, Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica had nine “encourage” votes, and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett of Guyana and Rafael Grossi of Argentina, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had eight each. Each of the three drew “discourage” votes from two permanent members — in a formal vote, a single one would amount to a veto. The council was due to hold its seventh poll on 30 October.

Step two: the General Assembly

Once the Security Council agrees on a name, it adopts a resolution recommending that candidate. The General Assembly then appoints the new Secretary-General, usually by acclamation.

Some things that are not rules

• Regional rotation. Regions have often expected to take turns, but nothing in the Charter requires it.
• A woman Secretary-General. Nine people have held the post since 1946, and all have been men. Many governments and campaigners have called for the next one to be a woman; it is not a requirement.
• Public hearings. Since the 2016 race, candidates have been presented publicly and questioned by member states in open sessions, making the process more transparent than the closed-door bargaining of the past.

More: The race and the seventh straw poll · In focus: choosing the next Secretary-General