On October 21, the United Arab Emirates entered one of its most ambitious diplomatic bets: putting forward Lana Nusseibeh, 48, to succeed António Guterres as UN Secretary-General.
In a race stalled after eight inconclusive rounds, the Emirati diplomat offers one of the most complete records in the field — and a country that has turned mediation between Moscow and Kyiv into statecraft.
On January 23, at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed posed alongside Jared Kushner, Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and Russian envoy Igor Kostyukov. Russians, Ukrainians and Americans were finally talking to one another in a three-way format, on ground all of them accepted. Ten months later, the United Arab Emirates is putting forward at the UN the diplomat who embodies that approach. Lana Nusseibeh, 48, has been a candidate to succeed António Guterres since October 21.
A stalled race
She is entering a race that has stalled. To win, a candidate needs nine of the fifteen votes on the Security Council and no veto from any of the five permanent members. In the straw poll of October 16, the first to distinguish the ballots of the major powers, each of the three front-runners received two discouraging votes from permanent members. In 2016, six rounds were enough to select Guterres. The eighth round was held on November 5, still without a result. Each front-runner carries a handicap that months of campaigning have not erased.
Three front-runners, three handicaps
Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan has led the polls since the summer. She is 70, and her career has been built in development economics, at UNDP and then at the head of UNCTAD, far from the war files that occupy the Council. Rumours reported in the American press suggest that Moscow or Beijing intends to block her, and she herself has acknowledged that she “wouldn’t be surprised” to face a veto.
Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, long seen as the favourite, has watched his campaign lose momentum. He refuses to step down as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the race, despite efforts by member states to limit conflicts of interest. Iran publicly considers him unfit for the post. His chief backer, Javier Milei, whose government withdrew from the WHO, is more of a burden than an asset, and Buenos Aires’s revival of the Falklands question has irritated London, which holds a veto.
Guyana’s Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett briefly took the lead in August. The New York Times then reported that the Trump administration opposed her candidacy, notably because she had described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. Guyanese President Irfaan Ali denies that any formal veto has been signalled.
The most complete record
Against them, Lana Nusseibeh offers one of the most complete records in the race. A Cambridge history graduate with a master’s degree from SOAS in London, she speaks Arabic, English, French and Hebrew. After starting out at UNESCO in Paris, she created the policy planning department of the Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2009 and became its first director, before being appointed special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2013, she became the first woman to represent the Emirates at the United Nations. She remained in the post until 2024, longer than any of her predecessors.
Those years in New York made her a respected voice at the UN. She chaired the Executive Board of UN Women, was elected Vice-President of the General Assembly in 2017 and, from 2017 to 2019, co-chaired the negotiations on Security Council reform, one of the most intractable files in the house. During the UAE’s term on the Council, in 2022 and 2023, she championed Resolution 2720 on the delivery of aid to Gaza. Her Egyptian counterpart, Osama Abdel Khalek, praised her as “the talented PR” of the Emirates, and Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour presented her with the Shield of Palestine when she left. Back in Abu Dhabi, she was promoted to Minister of State in September 2025. All six monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council now support her candidacy.
Abu Dhabi’s diplomatic capital
Her country provides the rest. Since the start of the war, the Emirates have conducted twenty-seven mediations between Moscow and Kyiv, the most recent on October 23, two days after her candidacy was announced. In total, 8,537 prisoners have been exchanged thanks to Abu Dhabi. A candidate shaped by this kind of diplomacy has fewer reasons than most to draw a Russian, Chinese or American veto.
She would also be the first woman to lead the UN in eighty years, the second Arab after Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the first from the Gulf. Her only handicap, a relative one, lies in regional rotation, under which the post would in principle go to Latin America. But custom is not a written rule, and US Ambassador Mike Waltz has warned that Washington does not consider itself bound by it. In her first straw poll, on October 30, she received seven encouraging votes, nine days after entering the race. Guterres’s successor is due to take office on January 1, 2027.
For France, given the bond of friendship it shares with the Emirates, this is the most strategic candidacy.
