Dear ,
Manhattan grinds to a halt. President Emmanuel Macron has to get out of his car and continue on foot. Benjamin Netanyahu takes to the General Assembly podium to berate an international community increasingly horrified by the war in Gaza, while scores of delegations walk out.
Yes, UN High-Level Week is upon us again.
But this one matters more than most. The coming days will likely decide who will lead the UN for the next five years. But the process isn’t an open election, we don’t get a vote. Instead, the decision is made behind closed doors in an opaque process closer to choosing a new pope than electing a president.
Technically, things have improved. Candidates publish vision statements, face public dialogues, and this year participated in an online Town Hall. Civil society can ask questions. Everyone is welcome.
Then the doors close.
The fifteen members of the Security Council conduct secret straw polls. Results are not officially published (though they do leak, yes). Any of the five permanent members - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US - can block a candidate. We know their track record. It doesn’t inspire confidence.
The Security Council recommends a candidate, and the General Assembly appoints them. White smoke.
We once had the luxury of considering this archaic voting procedure a quaint relic of 1945. Now it is deadly serious.
The next Secretary-General inherits an institution facing extraordinary financial strain, shrinking resources, geopolitical paralysis and existential questions about its future. Meanwhile, climate breakdown, war, AI, pandemics and nuclear risk demand more global cooperation, not less.
And here is the democratic problem: V-Dem estimates that 74% of humanity now lives under autocratic rule. Yet decision-making at the global level remains largely the preserve of governments - including those autocratic governments - rather than the people they represent.
Citizen participation is no longer a nice-to-have. Listening is not enough. Consultations and Town Halls are not enough. People need mechanisms to actually influence global decisions.
Our analysis of the candidates finds plenty of talk about transparency, civil society and inclusion - but almost no concrete proposals to give citizens real power. And after all the efforts to make the race even a little more transparent, it remains possible for a last-minute candidate to enter the race without having gone through the same public scrutiny - potentially turning the final decision back into horse-trading between China and the US.
And yes, it is time for a woman. Not simply for the sake of representation, but because the women in this race are the strongest candidates. After 80 years of men, if we don’t break the ultimate glass ceiling now, it will not be for lack of qualified women.
However, the danger is breaking it only to push the first woman Secretary-General off a glass cliff: an underfunded, embattled institution expected to solve increasingly impossible problems.
The UN is indispensable. And it needs reform to survive. But reform cannot deliver legitimacy through efficiency alone. The people whose lives are shaped by global decisions need a meaningful way to shape those decisions in return.
So while diplomats ask whom Washington will support and whom Moscow might veto, we should ask something else:
Who is the people’s candidate?
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