Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has withdrawn her candidacy for the United Nations secretary-general post, ending her campaign to become the first woman to lead the world body in its more than 80-year history.
The 74-year-old announced her decision on Saturday in a video posted on Instagram, reports Al Jazeera.
“Today I announced that I have decided not to continue with my candidacy for the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations,” she said.
Bachelet said she did not regret taking on the challenge, although she acknowledged that the timing was not right for the type of candidacy she had sought to represent.
Her decision came after the UN Security Council conducted its third informal straw poll on Friday. Bachelet secured only one “encourage” vote, while 11 members voted “discourage” and three expressed “no opinion”.
Her support had fallen steadily, from six “encourage” votes in July to two in August.
Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, who heads the UN’s Trade and Development body, secured the strongest backing in the latest poll, with nine “encourage” votes. Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett followed with eight. Other candidates still in the race include International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Ecuadorian diplomat Maria Fernanda Espinosa.
A candidate must secure at least nine votes from the Security Council’s 15 members to receive its recommendation. The candidate must also avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — before the final selection by the General Assembly.
Chile nominated Bachelet in February, with backing from Brazil and Mexico. An unofficial regional rotation had placed Latin America next in line for the post.
Peru’s Javier Perez de Cuellar remains the only Latin American to have served as UN secretary-general.
The successor to current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose term ends on 31 December, will take charge of an organisation facing multiple crises.
Guterres warned member states earlier this year that the UN faced “imminent financial collapse”. The organisation had accumulated $1.57 billion in unpaid dues by the end of 2025, while only a fraction of countries had fully paid their contributions.
World leaders are due to gather in New York next week for the General Assembly’s annual high-level session, which opens on Tuesday under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation”.
Guterres has warned that divisions among major powers — some of whom “themselves violate international law and sit in the Security Council” — have left the organisation deadlocked over Gaza, Ukraine and other crises.
He said the unresolved leadership contest would do little on its own to address the organisation’s wider dysfunction.
