Barbados Prime Minister Mottley in the Running for UN Secretary General

Several high-ranking politicians from Latin America and the Caribbean are considering running for the position of United Nations Secretary-General, with Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley emerging as the frontrunner.

There is a geographical rotation system for the position, and Latin America is next in line to present a Secretary-General.

Nobel laureate and former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and top Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi are also likely to enter the race.

Other potential candidates include Mexico’s foreign secretary Alicia Bárcena, high-ranking UN official and former Costa Rican vice president Rebeca Grynspan, and former UN General Assembly president and former Ecuadorian minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés.

However, Mottley is increasingly looking like a strong candidate, as some countries are pushing for a female Secretary-General after 78 years of male leadership.

Mottley has not yet confirmed her interest in running, but Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, has reportedly remarked that she has their vote.

Mottley, whose firebrand oration and deft handling of geopolitical affairs, has been Prime Minister of Barbados since 2018, and was re-elected in 2022. She rose to international prominence when her country decided to remove the British monarch as its head of state.

She is a vocal advocate for reparations for slavery from the British government. She also speaks forcefully about the responsibility industrialized nations have in causing environmental harm to smaller island nations like Barbados where climate change is having an outsized impact on citizens.  She is also a critic of global financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, and has called for them to be reformed.

In September, Mottley addressed the UN General Assembly and criticized the global community for allowing the European Union to access Venezuela’s oil and gas resources.