By Louise Blais

October 26, 2026

The contest to choose the next United Nations Secretary-General offers a useful corrective to the assumption that Washington has lost interest in the institution. An administration that frequently disparages the UN is actively seeking to shape its leadership.

That does not necessarily signal renewed confidence in multilateral cooperation, yet it does suggest that the organization retains enough influence to make its future worth contesting.

The succession to António Guterres has become a negotiation over that future.

Should the next Secretary-General rebuild the institution’s capacity to act independently? Accommodate the demands of its most powerful members, including reducing its scope and budgets?

These questions sit behind a process that combines public presentations with intensely private bargaining. The Security Council must recommend someone with at least nine votes and no permanent-member veto. The General Assembly, with its 193 member states then makes the appointment.

The General Assembly has never rejected the Security Council’s choice. That history gives the Council considerable authority, but it does not extinguish the wider membership’s right to say no.

The challenge each time has been to find a leader whom all the major powers will accept. And this is the impasse we have been in, over the past several weeks.  None of the leading candidates has been able to convince all P5 Security Council members (U.S., China, Russia, France and the U.K.).

This dead end has led to the official entry of a new candidate and much speculation about others.

The much-publicized arrival of Lana Nusseibeh, an Emirati diplomat bringing substantial experience at the UN and familiarity with the relationships through which the organization operates, has offered a compelling option.

After years of geopolitical division, Nusseibeh’s qualities matter. The next Secretary-General will need access to competing centres of power and the ability to turn that access into practical cooperation.

During my own years at the United Nations, Nusseibeh was well-liked and respected. She was seen as part of a new, modern generation of diplomatic leadership. That impression is not a substitute for examining her record or programme. It does help explain why her candidacy commands attention.

Her background could suit this moment. A diplomat representing a country that cultivates relationships across geopolitical divides understands a world in which governments increasingly resist exclusive alignment with any single power. The UN needs someone able to navigate that world without abandoning its Charter.

There would also be significance in finally appointing a woman as UN Secretary-General.

After nine male secretaries-general since its founding in 1945, another postponement would be difficult for the UN to defend when qualified women are available. Gender cannot substitute for judgment, competence or independence. Nor should those requirements become an indefinitely movable threshold that women are always judged to have not-quite reached.

Nusseibeh could be the right leader for this moment. Yet, Sudan clouds that possibility.

The UAE faces serious allegations of supporting the Rapid Support Forces, accused of atrocities in Sudan’s devastating war. Abu Dhabi denies supporting the group. Nusseibeh’s role in representing her government’s position makes the issue inseparable from scrutiny of her candidacy.

After years of geopolitical division, Nusseibeh’s qualities matter. The next Secretary-General will need access to competing centres of power and the ability to turn that access into practical cooperation.

A candidate should not automatically be held personally responsible for every action attributed to her country. But the Secretary-General’s authority depends partly on the confidence of people whom the international system has failed to protect.

Sudan therefore presents a substantive test of credibility and independence. Nusseibeh needs to demonstrate how she would discharge responsibilities to the entire membership, including when those responsibilities might conflict with the interests of her own country.

As scrutiny of Nusseibeh’s candidacy intensified over Sudan this past week, another possibility entered public view: Viktor Orbán.

The Wall Street Journal reported that American officials had encouraged the former “illiberal” Hungarian prime minister to seek the position, with possible Russian and Chinese support. Its account cited sources from three countries.

The WSJ cites Orban’s “moves against mass migration, liberal NGOs and Hungary’s left-leaning courts and press,” as reasons for his support among U.S., Russian, and Chinese officials. “Mr. Orbán often clashed with the European Union, while also milking it for subsidies, and his pro-China alignment somehow never punctured the image of a defender of Western civilization,” the piece continues.

The timing of what looks like a planted leak was striking. An experienced diplomatic candidate backed by the U.S. was confronting questions about her government’s conduct. Suddenly, Washington appeared to be exploring other options.

Was Washington developing an alternative as Nusseibeh’s vulnerabilities became more apparent? Were competing factions inside the White House promoting different visions of the next Secretary-General? Or might the prospect of Orbán make someone such as Nusseibeh more acceptable to governments still weighing their options?

This is how these contests unfold. Public endorsements tell only part of the story. Governments test names, measure resistance and preserve alternatives. A candidate’s prospects can change because of who else might enter. Washington itself may contain several centres of influence rather than one coherent strategy.

For Nusseibeh, the Orbán possibility cuts both ways. It warns against assuming that American acceptance would translate into sustained American backing. It could also strengthen her appeal to governments seeking an experienced leader capable of working with Washington without turning the Secretariat into an ideological project.

A convergence among Washington, Moscow and Beijing around Orbán would be consequential. While each could simply see a different advantage in the same appointment, installing a former head of government removed by his own people in May for his corruption, democratic backsliding, and human rights violations could also send the signal that the U.S. has indeed joined China and Russia in an autocracy-dominated dominated global order.

Should his candidacy gain traction, France and Britain would face a difficult choice. Either could block him, but doing so would require deciding that the costs of his appointment outweighed those of confronting the other permanent members. Elected Council members would also have agency: three major powers cannot supply nine votes by themselves.

The bargaining exposes competing ideas about whose interests the UN should serve and how much independence its leader should possess.

Washington’s engagement is important in that context. Seeking influence over an institution can reflect an ambition to strengthen it, redirect it, or constrain it.

While the latter is not encouraging, the effort itself tells us that the UN still possesses assets the U.S. considers valuable: diplomatic reach, operational machinery, convening power and the capacity to confer international legitimacy.  That in itself is something in which we should find some comfort.

Policy contributing writer Louise Blais served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations and as consul general in Atlanta. She is now a senior advisor on geopolitics and a non-resident contributor at l’Université Laval and Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.