Costa Rica's Rebeca Grynspan extended her lead in the race to become the 10th secretary-general of the United Nations on Thursday, November 5, winning 12 votes in favour and three against in the Security Council's eighth informal straw poll, according to people close to the process cited by Reuters.

Source: Reuters

It was Grynspan's strongest showing in the eight closed-door ballots the 15-member council has held in recent months to choose a successor to Antonio Guterres, who finishes his second five-year term this year, Reuters reported.

Argentina's Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, came second with nine 'encourage' votes, while Guyana's UN ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett received eight votes in favour, in third place, according to Reuters. An independent tracker of the secretary-general race, updated on November 5, recorded the same order and put the United Arab Emirates' Lana Nusseibeh fourth with seven encourage votes.

Source: UNSG race tracker

The result builds directly on the council's seventh straw poll on October 30, when Grynspan led with 11 votes — her previous best — ahead of Grossi and Rodrigues-Birkett. Read: Grynspan leads seventh straw poll with 11 votes

What a straw poll does — and does not — decide

Straw polls are informal soundings, not a formal vote. Securing the council's recommendation will require a formal vote, expected once one candidate shows a strong chance of prevailing, with at least nine positive votes and no 'discourage' votes from the five permanent members — France, Britain, the United States, Russia and China. Thursday's ballot did not disclose the preferences of those five members, Reuters reported, so it cannot show whether any permanent member opposes Grynspan.

Six of the seven earlier polls showed Grynspan narrowly ahead, with one poll in August placing Rodrigues-Birkett in the top spot, according to Reuters. When Guterres was chosen in October 2016, it took six straw polls for the council to reach agreement.

12 of 15Council members voting in favour of Grynspan in the eighth straw poll (Reuters)
9 votesFor Rafael Grossi, in second place
8 votesFor Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, in third place
8 ballotsStraw polls held so far — two more than the six it took to choose Guterres in 2016

Why the choice matters now

Whoever wins will have to tackle multiple crises, including several wars, cutbacks in US contributions to the UN, and the 193-member body's declining political relevance as Washington has pulled out of dozens of its agencies, Reuters reported. In an interview earlier this month, Grynspan, a Costa Rican economist and former vice president of her country, told Reuters the UN has become too risk-averse and its next leader must be prepared to bear the cost of diplomatic failure and to try again.

What happens next: the council is expected to move to a formal vote once a candidate looks able to prevail without a permanent-member block, and the successful nominee must then be appointed by the UN General Assembly. No date for a ninth poll or a formal vote has been announced; a separate interactive dialogue with another candidate, Turkiye's Feridun Sinirlioglu, is scheduled for November 6, according to the race tracker.

Source: UNSG race tracker