ABU DHABI (The Thursday Times) — The United Arab Emirates has entered veteran diplomat Lana Nusseibeh in the race to succeed António Guterres as United Nations Secretary-General, a bid that, if successful, would make her the first woman and the second Arab to lead the world body.
Nusseibeh, 48, an Emirati of Palestinian heritage, stepped down from her government post and as the UAE’s envoy to the UN and the European Union to campaign for the job. The UAE formally nominated her on Wednesday, citing her “extensive experience with regard to the United Nations”, and she has the backing of Gulf states.
A decade at the UN
She served as the UAE’s permanent representative to the UN from 2013 to 2024, the first woman to hold the post, and led the country’s successful campaign for a seat on the Security Council. In a campaign video she pledged to “bring greater urgency to the work for peace” and to “defend human rights.”
“Lana Nusseibeh has a thick CV,” Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told AFP, adding that she “brings in the best of the UAE’s diplomacy.” Nickolay Mladenov, high representative for Gaza under the US-backed Board of Peace, said she “does not give up when the room gets difficult” and is “relentless, but never in a way that overwhelms people.”
A deadlocked race
The Secretary-General is chosen through informal straw polls in the 15-member Security Council, whose recommendation then goes to the General Assembly; any of the five permanent members can block a candidate. In the most recent poll, every contender drew at least two opposing votes from permanent members, effectively a veto.
Former Costa Rican vice-president Rebeca Grynspan had narrowly led earlier polls, and International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi and Guyana’s UN ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett are also in the race. By custom the post rotates between regions, which would point to a candidate from Latin America this time, but US Ambassador Mike Waltz has said the focus should be on the “best candidate” rather than region or gender.
Questions over the UAE’s record
Nusseibeh’s bid is expected to draw scrutiny of the UAE’s normalisation of ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords, which she has defended, and of accusations that Abu Dhabi backs the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s war, which the UAE denies.
“There is no candidate that is short of criticism… We’ll just have to deal with it, especially the Sudan file,” Abdulla said. Guterres’s second five-year term ends on December 31, 2026.∎
