Ecuadorean diplomat Ivonne Baki has joined the race to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations, the eighth candidate to replace Portugal’s Antonio Guterres next year, documents showed yesterday.
Baki, who has served as an Ecuadorean government minister and as ambassador to France, Qatar and the United States, was nominated by the Pacific island nation of Tonga and is the second candidate from Ecuador.
Guterres’ successWor faces the task of revitalising an organisation in crisis and declining stature amid pressure to reform what critics say is a bloated, costly bureaucracy and reduce duplication across its agencies.
In his nomination letter, Tonga’s UN ambassador, Viliami Va’inga Tone, said the United Nations “is at a critical point of transition and requires leadership that is experienced, principled and unifying to navigate this period.”
He said he was confident Baki, 75, possessed the necessary “experience, diplomatic skill and integrity to mobilise the Organisation and the wider international community to strengthen multilateralism and advance the purposes and principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”
Denmark, the current chair of the UN Security Council, has said it aims to hold another informal poll among council members on Friday as part of the process of selecting the next UN secretary-general.
Guterres steps down as head of the world body at year-end after two five-year terms. A first straw poll in the 15-member Council to replace him took place at the end of July.
That showed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as a narrow early frontrunner among seven current candidates, followed by former Guyanese Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog.
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