New UN secretary general should be unbiased actor, not Western pawn — experts

MOSCOW, November 26. /TASS/. The new UN Secretary General must be an unbiased actor free from Western influence, one who champions the multipolarity, on which the organization was founded, Oleg Karpovich, deputy rector of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.

"Two people have been identified so far. These are IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and [Secretary General of the UN Trade and Development] Rebeca Grynspan. The organization is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year and is facing a lot of challenges," he told TASS.

According to him, the secretariat of the world organization was "privatized" long ago: representatives of Western countries and a large number of representatives of the United States work there.

"Regarding the new secretary general, they are trying to guess whether it will be a man or a woman. But the bigger thing in this context is how a person works, so that he is not subject to various kinds of influence from, first of all, Western states, so that he is objective in his decisions and actions," the expert noted.

"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly criticized the UN. He did this primarily in connection with the events in Bucha."

Karpovich expressed hope that with the arrival of a new secretary general, "the organization will move towards reform, allowing it to adapt to modern events. Because if you look at the UN objectively now, there are more questions about it than a positive perception of the actions it takes. A lot is happening outside of the decisions of the UN Security Council, Western countries behave as they will, they imagine that they are still in a unipolar world, in a unipolar world order."

Multipolarity

The changing of the guard to a multipolar world order, Karpovich believes, should be reflected in the UN structure so that the Security Council is expanded to include the countries of the Global Majority, and the decisions of the organization's main institution are more objective, "meeting the interests of the majority of the world's states, and not those of certain Western countries. We hope that the head of the organization will be a man who is devoid of various prejudices, stereotypes, that he will really promote the interests of all states without exception. Then the UN will be able to meet the tasks contained in its charter. This will be an important step that will strengthen international security."

Split in votes

Ivan Loshkarev, Associate Professor of the Department of Political Theory at MGIMO University, said that today there are more than a dozen possible candidates for the post of Secretary General.

"Until recently, Rafael Grossi was the most likely candidate, he is nominated from a group of Latin American states, but a problem arose here, since Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Mexico announced their desire to nominate their candidate in this group," he said. "And it is likely that there will be a split in the votes, because many of these states are quite serious and have partners far beyond their region."

UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, representing Nigeria, Bulgarian candidate Kristalina Georgieva, as well as former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, representing Oceania, are considered to be serious contenders for the role.

"But what needs to be understood is that the current candidate can no longer represent the European region, because Antonio Guterres was from Portugal," Loshkarev said. "The previous secretary general was from Asia, before that there was an African secretary general, and, apparently, the next one is likely to be someone from Latin America or Oceania. There are practically no representatives of Asia, and not so many representatives from Africa - three possible candidates, with the Nigerian diplomat having the best odds."

The problem with reports

Speaking about the importance of the UN secretary general's office and his ability to influence the agenda, Loshkarev said that "the Secretary General rather works subordinate to the member states, and the main area of his work, besides organizing the activities of the secretariat, is the provision of various kinds of reports that affect the agenda of the organization.

"And the problem with Guterres was that when it came to Ukraine, his subordinates provided the Security Council with a very distorted version of events and very one-sided facts."

The expert doubted that with the arrival of a new person, changes in the organization's agenda can be expected.

"First of all, Western countries will also participate in his selection, and they also have the veto right, so this will be a conceptual figure that Westerners will be more or less comfortable with," Loshkarev noted. "And secondly, the general secretary does not work alone, he has a huge staff. They are mainly people with an agenda unfriendly to Russia who are represented there, and in this sense little will change."

Moscow's position

Kirill Logvinov, director of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier in an interview with TASS that according to the informal principle of fair geographical representation, the turn to nominate a candidate for the chair should go to the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries.

"We proceed from the fact that the selection of a specific person should be approached as carefully as possible. The future secretary general must first of all have the necessary experience and professional qualities, and build his platform on a balanced position, as stipulated by Article 100 of the UN Charter," he said. "A repeat of the current situation, when the secretary general condones the usurpation of the secretariat by one group of countries, should be avoided." According to him, Russia will be satisfied only with a candidate who will work to narrow the differences, not exceed his authority, and conscientiously adhere to the principles of the founding document of the world organization.

In principle, Moscow "supports the nomination of a single candidate from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries. Otherwise, the states of the world majority may receive another Western European or simply a politician working for the interests of the Anglo-Saxons under the guise of a ‘compromise proposal. Candidates with dual (Western) citizenship are also unacceptable to us.".