Former vice president of Costa Rica Rebeca Grynspan, candidate for secretary general of the United Nations, promised this Wednesday that promoting peace will be her first priority if chosen, at the same time as she warned that trust is waning in the world body and that time is running out to restore it.
‘The promotion of peace is the purpose of this organization,’ said Grynspan, one of four candidates vying for the post of UN secretary-general starting next year, at a UN candidacy hearing in New York.
‘I will be a peacemaker. I will disembark before the fighting starts and I will be the first to pick up the phone. I will travel to where the wars are happening. I will speak to all parties. I will work with the Security Council, with the Member States and I will mediate between the mediators,’ she said.
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The candidates are running for a five-year term to succeed António Guterres of Portugal, which can be extended for a further five, and will face an enormous task in revitalizing an organization in crisis, whose stature has declined significantly in recent years.
Major powers, even as they increasingly flout long-standing norms of the international order, have pressured the 193-member organization to reform, cut costs and prove its relevance.
There are far fewer candidates than in 2016, when Guterres was chosen from a group of 13 contenders, but others could join in the coming months.
Born to parents who fled Europe after World War II, Grynspan said their lives and experiences were a demonstration of what peace makes possible.
Grynspan, an economist who is the current head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, also promised to lead reform efforts.
‘Defending the United Nations today means having the courage to change it. Reforming for results will be my second priority,’ she said, adding that ‘confidence in the organization is waning and… time is running out to restore it.’
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No woman has led the UN
Grynspan, 70, aims to be the first woman to head the UN in its 80-year history.
She is running with former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, Argentinean Rafael Grossi, current head of the UN nuclear watchdog, and former Senegal president Macky Sall.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Bachelet, 74, highlighted her support for women’s rights, despite calls from some conservative US lawmakers for Washington to veto her candidacy over her support for abortion.
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Grossi told his hearing before representatives of UN member states and civil society on Tuesday that UN reform was heading in the right direction, but it was only the beginning.
An unwritten rule is that the secretary-general should never be chosen from among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia and the United States — to avoid excessive concentration of power, although their support is crucial in a long and complex selection process.
