UAE nominates diplomat Lana Nusseibeh to be next UN chief, potentially breaking deadlock
Well-regarded Emirati official more likely to secure support from US after six inconclusive rounds of Security Council voting; she would be first female secretary-general and first of Palestinian heritage
The United Arab Emirates has formally nominated one of its top diplomats, Lana Nusseibeh, as the next United Nations secretary-general, in a move that could break the ongoing deadlock in the election to replace Antonio Guterres.
Nusseibeh’s nomination — submitted in a letter by UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed to the heads of the UN General Assembly and Security Council — came after six rounds of voting in the latter body failed to produce a candidate acceptable to all five permanent Security Council members.
US President Donald Trump’s administration reportedly opposed all seven contenders to date.
But Washington’s close relationship with the UAE, a country with which the other permanent members — Russia, China, Britain and France — also have strong working ties, may be enough to finally produce a consensus candidate.
Nusseibeh is a highly regarded diplomat who currently serves as minister of state in the Emirati foreign ministry, and was the UAE’s ambassador to the UN from 2013 to 2024.
She would be the first female secretary-general and the first of Palestinian descent. Nusseibeh would be the second UN chief from the Middle East after Egypt’s Boutros Boutros Ghali held the position in the 1990s.
I am standing to be Secretary-General because I believe this is a moment to act with greater urgency: to act earlier, bring people together across difference, and drive the work forward until it produces concrete results. That is how we rebuild trust in the United Nations and… pic.twitter.com/l9CyzWeHXH
— Lana Nusseibeh (@Lana_Nusseibeh) October 22, 2026
“I think it would be great if the next secretary-general is a woman, but I’m not running because I’m a woman; I’m running because I am stubbornly optimistic about the future of the United Nations and I believe we need someone who is relentless in the pursuit of diplomacy to open doors,” she said Wednesday.
The 48-year-old may face pushback over allegations that the UAE has supported the Rapid Support Forces, which are accused of committing war crimes in Sudan. Abu Dhabi has denied the charges, which UN sanctions monitors have described as credible.
Asked how the issue might affect her candidacy, Nusseibeh told Reuters she had taken leave from her UAE post and would focus on Sudan’s humanitarian crisis.
Her candidacy could also face resistance as it goes against the traditional regional rotation for secretaries-general, according to which a representative from Latin America is due to be selected when the current UN chief Antonio Guterres completes his second five-year term on December 31, 2026.
“I am standing to be Secretary-General because I believe this is a moment to act with greater urgency: to act earlier, bring people together across difference, and drive the work forward until it produces concrete results,” she said in a statement announcing her candidacy on Wednesday.
Nusseibeh’s father Zaki was born in Jerusalem, which he left in the 1960s to study in the UK. He graduated in 1967, around the time that the Six-Day War broke out and opted to resettle in the UAE, where he climbed the ranks in government to eventually become a minister as well as a top adviser to multiple presidents.
Lana Nusseibeh followed in her father’s path into public service. Beforehand, she similarly went to college in the UK, where she received a master’s degree in Israeli and Jewish Diaspora Studies at the University of London.
She was the UAE’s ambassador to the UN when the Abraham Accords were signed and used the position to promote the normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries.
In 2022, Nusseibeh succeeded in getting the UAE a seat on the Security Council, where she helped pass a resolution in 2023 that pushed for expanding humanitarian aid and access into Gaza a couple of months after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in the coastal enclave.
Trying to break a deadlock
In the latest informal straw poll held last week to gauge which candidates have a shot at becoming the next UN secretary-general, every contender received an effective veto.
One candidate, Macky Sall of Senegal, subsequently dropped out.
That left Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan — who has been among the frontrunners in the five previous polls — running alongside Guyanese ex-foreign minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
Also in the race are Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, the current head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Ecuador’s Ivonne A-Baki and Maria Fernanda Espinosa, and Uganda’s Olara Otunnu.
Even if a candidate earns the required nine votes from the 15 available in the Security Council, they must also avoid a veto by the five major powers, which are deeply divided.
Once a candidate clears those bars, their name will go to the General Assembly of all UN members for confirmation.
The Security Council straw poll was devised in the early 1980s in an attempt to break a deadlock between two candidates shut down by vetoes.
The informal mechanism has persisted, in various forms, despite criticism from countries opposed to the opaque process.
Agencies contributed to this report.