GUYANA’S candidate for United Nations Secretary-General, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, met Friday afternoon with the Permanent Representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, according to a statement posted on the official Facebook page of the Permanent Mission of Guyana to the United Nations, extending her campaign’s diplomatic reach into Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
During the meeting, Rodrigues-Birkett outlined her vision for a more efficient, effective and impactful United Nations, the Mission said, and the two sides exchanged views on issues of priority to those countries and the wider regions they represent.
The engagement is the latest stop in a months-long diplomatic offensive by Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN since 2020, who has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Secretary-General António Guterres.
In the Security Council’s second informal straw poll on August 21, she led the field of eight declared candidates with eight “encourage” votes, three “discourage” votes and four members offering no opinion, narrowly ahead of UNCTAD chief Rebeca Grynspan and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi, who each drew seven “encourage” votes. Uganda’s Olara Otunnu registered the sharpest gain in support between the first and second rounds of balloting.
Her outreach reflects the more transparent, inclusive contest ushered in by General Assembly resolution 79/327, adopted last September, under which the Assembly’s president has convened webcast dialogues at UN Headquarters for every declared candidate to make a direct pitch to all 193 member states.
Nominated by President Irfaan Ali in June, Rodrigues-Birkett has campaigned under the banner “Reasserting, Reforming, and Rallying Our United Nations,” pairing calls to restore the UN’s global standing and rebuild consensus among divided member states with support for Guterres’ UN80 initiative to streamline the organisation’s mandates and structure ahead of its 80th anniversary.
Friday’s talks continue a pattern that has taken Rodrigues-Birkett across nearly every regional and interest grouping at the UN in recent months. She has presented her candidacy to Liberian President Joseph Boakai and Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti — Liberia holds one of the Council’s rotating seats through 2027 — as well as to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Forum of Small States at a gathering hosted by Singapore’s mission, and a CELAC regional dialogue convened by Uruguay.
If chosen to succeed him, Rodrigues-Birkett would become the first woman, the first person of Indigenous descent and the first Caribbean national to lead the United Nations in its 80-year history.
