Uganda is taking its campaign for Dr. Olara Otunnu to the next level, with the veteran diplomat heading to New York for high-level engagements with UN member states and the Security Council as the race to succeed António Guterres gathers momentum.
Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, announced that Otunnu is travelling to New York accompanied by former Prime Minister Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, who is leading Uganda’s campaign.
The delegation is expected to meet UN member-state delegations and participate in interactive dialogues with the UN General Assembly on August 19 and the UN Security Council on August 20.
“Happy to announce that Dr Olara Otunnu, Uganda’s candidate for United Nations Secretary General, accompanied by former Prime Minister, the Head of the campaign, are enroute to New York,” Ayebare said.
The New York engagements mark a significant phase in Uganda’s bid, coming shortly after Otunnu formally entered the seven-candidate race to replace Guterres, whose second term ends at the close of 2026.
Otunnu’s candidacy was formally submitted by Uganda in July, bringing his extensive diplomatic and UN experience into a highly competitive contest involving candidates from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Senegal and Uganda.
The Ugandan diplomat brings a particularly unusual connection to the UN Secretary-General selection process. During his tenure as Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Otunnu served as President of the Security Council in 1981 and devised the informal straw-poll mechanism that has since become a central feature of the selection process.
His campaign now faces the challenge of converting diplomatic visibility into broader support among UN member states and, crucially, the 15 members of the Security Council.
In the first informal straw poll held on July 30, Otunnu recorded two votes encouraging his candidacy, five discouraging votes and eight members expressing no opinion. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan emerged as the early leader with 10 encouragement votes, followed by Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett with nine.
The straw polls are non-binding and are intended to gauge the level of support for each candidate before the Security Council eventually recommends a candidate to the 193-member General Assembly.
The stakes are particularly high because any eventual candidate must secure at least nine votes in the Security Council while avoiding a veto from any of its five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Denmark, which holds the Security Council presidency for August, has indicated that the Council is aiming to conduct another informal poll on August 21, meaning Otunnu’s New York engagements will come at a critical moment in the contest.
For Uganda, the August meetings provide an opportunity to directly present Otunnu’s credentials, vision and reform agenda to the diplomats who will ultimately shape the outcome of the succession process.
Otunnu, 75, is a former UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. His campaign has highlighted UN institutional reform, conflict prevention and resolution, climate action and stronger governance of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.
With the contest still open and additional rounds of polling expected in the coming weeks, Uganda’s campaign is now entering one of its most consequential diplomatic phases.
