Lana Nusseibeh: Next UN chief?
The race to become the next U.N. Secretary-General has a new contender: Lana Nusseibeh. She has entered the contest at a time when the world’s most powerful countries are struggling to agree on who...
The race to become the next U.N. Secretary-General has a new contender: Lana Nusseibeh. She has entered the contest at a time when the world’s most powerful countries are struggling to agree on who should lead the world body. If successful, she would make history as the first-ever woman and the first from a Gulf nation to lead the world body.
The U.A.E. has formally nominated Lana Nusseibeh for U.N. Secretary-General. She is currently serving as the U.A.E.’s Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 21st October, U.A.E. President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced her candidacy. The timing is significant. After six rounds of informal voting, none of the candidates had secured support from all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Nusseibeh’s late entry has opened the door to a fresh contest, with the possibility that a new candidate could help break the deadlock and produce a consensus candidate.
The Secretary-General is appointed by the U.N. General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. The Council has 15 members but the five permanent members — the U.S., China, Russia, France and the U.K. — hold veto power. A candidate can secure the required nine votes and still be vetoed by any one of these five countries.
The latest informal straw poll, held on 16th October, highlighted the problem. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan received nine votes encouraging her candidacy but two permanent members reportedly voted against her. Argentina’s Rafael Grossi and Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett also received two discouraging votes from the permanent members. These were not formal vetoes but they indicated that even the leading candidates faced significant opposition. Senegal’s Macky Sall has since withdrawn.
The Wall Street Journal describes her arrival as a shake-up in a process where no candidate has emerged as a clear favourite. The Financial Times had earlier reported that her supporters were sounding out diplomatic missions to assess the level of support for her candidacy.
So who is Lana Nusseibeh? She is no outsider to the U.N.’s corridors, having served as the U.A.E.’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2013 to 2024 — becoming the first Emirati woman to hold the position in the process. During her tenure, she served as Vice-President of the U.N. General Assembly and President of the Executive Board of U.N. Women. She also helped lead the U.A.E.’s work during its 2022–2023 term on the Security Council, including efforts to build agreement on international security and humanitarian issues. She has a Master’s degree in Israeli and Jewish Diaspora Studies.
There is also an unusual twist to her candidacy. In 2016 and 2017, she co-chaired a working group that sought to make the process of selecting the U.N. Secretary-General more participatory and transparent. She is now competing under rules she helped write.
Politics has been part of her life since birth. Her grandfather, Anwar Nusseibeh was a well-known Palestinian politician who held several ministerial posts in Jordan’s Government and was its ambassador to Britain in the 1960s. Her father Zaki Nusseibeh was an aide of Sheikh Zayed, the U.A.E.’s founding father and has been an active contributor to the Emirati Government for over 50 years.
In announcing her candidacy, Nusseibeh argued that the U.N. needs to act earlier, bring countries together despite their differences, and deliver concrete results — rather than simply respond to crises after they escalate. She also stressed the need to rebuild trust in the organisation.
If elected, she would become the first woman to serve as U.N. Secretary-General and the first from a Gulf nation. She would also become the second U.N. chief from the Arab world, following Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Nusseibeh’s diplomatic experience may be central to her pitch but her candidacy is likely to bring scrutiny of the U.A.E.’s foreign policy. As the Associated Press reports: “Lana Nusseibeh brings Palestinian roots and defence of the U.A.E.’s historic relations with Israel to her candidacy but she faces sharp criticism over her country’s alleged role in backing paramilitary fighters who have killed thousands in Sudan’s civil war. The Gulf nation has denied the claims”.
The timing of the nomination has drawn attention to a trilateral meeting involving India, the U.S. and the U.A.E. in Mumbai on 20th October. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held a three-way meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.A.E. Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. The meeting took place just a day before Nusseibeh’s candidacy was announced. But, there is no public confirmation that her nomination was discussed during the meeting.
Ramesh Ramachandran is a senior consulting editor with D.D. India
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