Olara Otunnu joins UN chief race as Uganda backs late bid

Kampala,UPDATED: Aug 10, 2026 15:02 IST

Ugandan statesman Olara Otunnu has entered the race to become the next United Nations secretary-general, joining six other candidates seeking to succeed Antonio Guterres when his term ends this year.

Backed by Uganda, Otunnu is in New York “to meet delegations and engage in interactive dialogue” with the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council, Uganda’s permanent representative to the UN, Adonia Ayebare, said. His candidacy comes weeks after other contenders began presenting their cases, and he also faces the traditional expectation that the post should go to Latin America this time.

Ayebare said Otunnu needed visa assistance because Ugandans are currently barred from entering the United States as part of measures to prevent the spread of Ebola. Otunnu, 75, is a veteran of the UN system and has been retired since he unsuccessfully contested the Ugandan presidency in 2011.

Otunnu was once seen as a strong contender to replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN secretary-general in 1997, but was blocked by the same Ugandan authorities that are now backing his nomination. At the time, he was president of the Peace Institute in New York and was not on good terms with the government of President Yoweri Museveni. The post eventually went to Ghana’s Kofi Annan, who later appointed Otunnu as UN under-secretary-general and special representative for children and armed conflict.

Otunnu served in that role from 1997 to 2005, the year he won the Sydney Peace Prize for “his ceaseless efforts to protect children in time of war and his promotion of measures for the healing and social reintegration of children in the aftermath of conflict”. Educated at Oxford and Harvard Law School, he was Uganda’s representative to the UN from 1980 to 1985 and served for one year as president of the Security Council. He also briefly served as Uganda’s foreign minister in the 1980s and is widely respected in Uganda as an elder statesman.

“Even though the UN is now occupied with a number of issues across the board, the most important single mandate for the UN remains the issue of peace and security,” Otunnu told reporters last week. He also said that, as president of the Security Council, he designed the system of straw balloting still used today as the so-called Otunnu Formula, first deployed in the 1981 selection of Peru’s Javier Perez de Cuellar as UN secretary-general.

It remains unclear why Uganda nominated Otunnu several weeks after other candidates began their auditions for the role. Another challenge is the informal regional rotation of the post, with Latin America considered next in line, though there is no formal bar on candidates from other regions and no clear front-runner so far. “Otunnu is the dark horse candidate,” said Angelo Izama, a Ugandan analyst with the Fanaka Kwawote think tank. “He is a safe candidate. If the top Latin American candidate is vetoed, he is going to be the fall-back candidate.”

Others in the race are Senegal’s Macky Sall, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa and Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett. The selection will be made by the 15-member Security Council, especially its five veto-wielding members - the US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France - before final approval by the 193-member General Assembly. The successful candidate is expected to take office on January 1, with Otunnu now joining a crowded contest for the top UN post.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends