{ "archive_path": "archive/1787696847.260923", "base_url": "www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856", "basename": "60856", "bookmarked_date": "2026-08-25 22:27", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.yourdemocracy.net.au", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856.html" }, "domain": "www.yourdemocracy.net.au", "extension": "", "hash": "1TJ76ESPTKGSNFJ55E1B", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "60", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.yourdemocracy.net.au" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:27.898675+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:27.392046+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "60", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:29.006449+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:27.904446+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:52.382582+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:44.812467+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmppqnoklmi", "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:44.805354+00:00", "index_texts": [ "The United Nations has never appointed a woman Secretary-General. Four experienced women are now in the running, but the Security Council\u2019s veto politics could still decide the outcome.A 2026 Lowy poll from two months ago\u00a0shows that 70 per cent of Australians say that \u201cthe United Nations remains important to Australia\u2019s national interests.\u201d One would think, therefore, that there would be significant interest in the appointment of the UN\u2019s tenth Secretary-General, which is taking place at the moment.Connie PeckAfter 81 years of men, will the UN finally choose a woman?The overall selection process is prescribed by\u00a0Article 97 of the UN Charter: \u201cThe Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.\u201d But since the Charter offers little other guidance, various informal procedures and practices have evolved over time. One is the rule of regional rotation, with it\u00a0currently being Latin America and the Caribbean\u2019s \u201cturn,\u201d although candidates from other regions can also be nominated.\u00a0Seven candidates have been nominated to date\u00a0\u2013 five from Latin America and the Caribbean (four women and one man) and two from Africa (both men). Women have been nominated as candidates since 1991, however, no woman has ever been selected, in spite of campaigns to this effect in 2006 and 2016.It is generally accepted that\u00a0candidates should come from small or mid-sized countries\u00a0but not from the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council. To be considered, a candidate must be nominated by one or more of the 193 member states, although the nomination does not have to come from the country of a candidate\u2019s nationality.For many years,\u00a0the selection process was opaque, but that has recently improved. The current round of nominations was initiated in November by\u00a0a joint letter from the Presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council\u00a0addressed to all member states, inviting nominations and explicitly encouraging countries, \u201cto strongly consider nominating women as candidates.\u201d The letter requested that nominations be accompanied by a nomination letter; a vision statement; a curriculum vitae; and a statement of campaign financing disclosures. As nominations were received, the Presidents jointly informed all members and the information was posted\u00a0on a UN website.In response to\u00a0General Assembly resolution 79/327\u00a0of 5 September 2025 on the revitalisation of the work of the General Assembly,\u00a0the President organised interactive webcast dialogues with all candidates\u00a0(each lasting three hours), where candidates responded to questions posed by representatives of member states and civil society. As anyone who has ever interviewed job applicants knows (and as I learned from watching the webcasts), this is very useful for identifying the best candidates.In addition, on 23 July,\u00a0a UN Town Hall was organised\u00a0in the General Assembly Hall by the President of the GA and\u00a0broadcast live on Bloomberg, with two Bloomberg moderators presiding. All six candidates at the time (a seventh was subsequently nominated) appeared together on the stage and answered questions from the moderators and the audience, who were again representatives of member states and civil society.\u00a0The Security Council also organised confidential closed-door sessions\u00a0with each of the candidates.Subsequently, on 30 July,\u00a0the Security Council held its first confidential \u201cstraw poll,\u201d an iterative process repeated over a number of weeks to decide which candidate has the most support. In each, the 15 members of the Council, i.e., the P5 \u2013 the US, Russia, China, France and the UK \u2013 and its\u00a010 elected members (E10)\u00a0who serve two-year terms (currently, Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia) indicate which candidates they are willing to support by voting \u201cencourage\u201d (in favour), \u201cdiscourage\u201d (against) or \u201cno opinion\u201d (abstain).During the first rounds, the ballots are identical. However, after a few rounds (the number is not specified),\u00a0the Council introduces colour-coded ballots:\u00a0\u201cred\u201d for the P5 and \u201cwhite\u201d for the E10. From that point onward, votes carry different political weights, since a \u201cdiscourage\u201d vote from a P5 member is equivalent to a veto. At least nine \u201cencourage\u201d votes with no \u201cdiscourage\u201d votes from the P5 are required for a candidate to be selected. Candidates with a poor showing may withdraw, although there are no rules requiring this. Votes are intended to be confidential, but results usually leak, as they did after the\u00a030 July straw poll.Once a determination has been made, the Security Council holds a formal vote and then makes a formal recommendation to the GA, which can be accepted by acclamation or by a formal vote of the 193 member states. In theory,\u00a0the GA can send the Council\u2019s recommendation back for reconsideration, although this has never happened.It has been argued\u00a0that selecting a woman as Secretary-General could break the \u201cglass ceiling,\u201d but ultimately present her with a \u201cglass cliff\u201d where a woman is chosen during periods of institutional crises when risk of failure is the highest. While it is possible that this might account for some of the motivation of those involved in the selection process, the four women in the running have all broken glass ceilings in the past and overcome glass cliff phenomena by succeeding in very difficult leadership roles under daunting circumstances.Given that the appointment of a woman in this post is long overdue, there is reason to be hopeful.This will require, however, that none of the P5 veto her candidature. As noted by\u00a0a report of Women in International Security, \u201cAll things considered, the chances of women in the running will depend heavily on the veto power of the United States or Russia who could block their appointment.\u201d\u00a0The UK, France and China have all indicated\u00a0that they are positive about the appointment of a woman, but Russia has shown resistance to framing UN leadership selection around gender, and the US, under the Trump administration, has been averse to \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion.\u201dIn a report discussing the possibility of a \u201cdiscourage\u201d vote from the P5, Rebeca Grynspan is generally \u201cviewed as the candidate with the lowest ideological controversy,\u201d and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett \u201ccarries the lowest visible P5 friction,\u201d although as Guyana\u2019s permanent representative on the Security Council, she abstained on a 2024 US-sponsored Gaza ceasefire resolution which might annoy the US. Maria Fernanda Espinosa\u2019s prior support for Julian Assange (as Ecuador\u2019s UN representative and Foreign Minister) could \u201cunsettle the UK which spent years pursuing his extradition.\u201d Finally, China could \u201cpose a challenge for Michelle Bachelet\u201d since, at the end of her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, she authorised publication of a UN report (despite China lobbying against it) stating that abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities constitute crimes against humanity.Although the P5 have veto power, the E10 also have power since, if seven members agree on a single candidate and refuse to change their vote, the P5 would not be able to advance a candidate, even if they all agreed \u2013 because nine votes are required. With seven E10 members voting \u201cdiscourage\u201d on a P5 candidate, there would be only eight voting \u201cencourage\u201d and the vote would be blocked. This has even been called the \u201csixth veto power.\u201dThis momentous decision for the \u201cmost impossible job in the world\u201d (as it was described by the UN\u2019s first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie) will probably occur in early October. How the process is carried out and how its outcome is perceived will have significant implications for the restoration of confidence in the UN\u2019s ability to fufil its mandate in an increasingly turbulent world.As the current President of the General Assembly,\u00a0Annalena Baerbock (one of only five women ever elected to this post\u00a0in 81 years; the other 76 were men), explains: \u201cOur choice will send a powerful message about who we are, and whether we truly serve all 8 billion people of the world in all their diversity.\u201dhttps://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/08/after-81-years-of-men-will-the-un-finally-choose-a-woman/PLEASE VISIT:YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE \u2014 NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT \u2014 SINCE 2005.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Gus Leonisky\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 RABID ATHEIST.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD\u2026.PLEASE, CONNIE, DO NOT PUSH THIS WARMONGERING FEMALE, Annalena Baerbock, FOR THE ROLE OF LEADER OF THE UNITED NATIONS.... SHE'S AS DUMB AS A POLYURETHANE BRICK IN AN ACID BATH... AND HATES RUSSIA TO THE POINT SHE WISHES WINSTON CHURCHILL HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO NUKE IT AS HE REQUESTED IT FROM THE ALLIES, AFTER WORLD WAR TWO...\u00a0GERMANY GOT BOOTED OUT OF THE COUNCIL BECAUSE OF ANNALENA...SAY, THE FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER OF AUSTRIA, Karin Kneissl,\u00a0WOULD DO A FAR MORE SERIOUS JOB IN SMOOTHING THE SHARP EDGES OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE, ON THIS TINY PLANET....Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern WOULD DO A FAR BETTER JOB THAN THE PRESENT CROP OF DUDES AS WELL...\u00a0OUR OWN Julia Gillard WOULD HOLD THE MISOGYNIST CLUB IN CONTEMPT AND WITH A BIT OF COACHING WOULD COME TO TERM WITH CORRUPT AGENT ZELENSKY FROM MI-6....AND WHAT ABOUT SOME PRESENT ASIAN WOMEN LEADERS?\u00a0A FEMALE CHINESE ROBOT?====================PLEASE VISIT:YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE \u2014 NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT \u2014 SINCE 2005.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Gus Leonisky\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 RABID ATHEIST.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD\u2026." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:43.277435+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "60", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:43.272939+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "we need a woman to lead the world.... | Your Democracy", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:43.253208+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--backup-converted", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--timeout=60", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--warc-file=/data/archive/1787696847.260923/warc/1787696849", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:43.246953+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-08-25T22:27:29.013695+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "we need a woman to lead the world.... | Your Democracy", "warc": null, "wget": "www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1787696847.260923", "newest_archive_date": "2026-08-25T22:27:44.812467+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-08-25T22:27:27.392046+00:00", "path": "/drupal/node/60856", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "0425c11a-db4d-4345-abe5-7a462d6b9995", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1787696847-import.txt" ], "tags": null, "tags_str": "", "timestamp": "1787696847.260923", "title": "we need a woman to lead the world.... | Your Democracy", "updated": "2026-08-25T22:27:27.391820+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-08-25 22:27", "url": "https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/60856" }