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Costa Rica's Former Jewish Vice President Extends Lead in Informal UN Chief Poll, Sources Say
Rebeca Grynspan, an economist and the daughter of Holocaust survivors with close family in Israel, got 11 votes in favor and 4 against in an informal poll on the 15-member council, two people close to the process said
An informal poll by the United Nations Security Council on Friday showed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan extended her lead as frontrunner in the race to become the 10th UN secretary-general, two people close to the process said.
Grynspan got 11 votes in favor and 4 against on the 15-member council, marking her strongest showing in seven closed-door ballots conducted in recent months to replace António Guterres as he finishes his second five-year term this year.
If chosen, she would become the first woman and first Jewish person to hold the UN's top post.
Grynspan, an economist, currently serves as secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the UN body focused on global trade, investment, finance and economic development, particularly in developing countries.
Grynspan has said in a 2022 podcast interview that her Jewish parents fled Poland for the Soviet Union before World War II as antisemitism intensified and the Nazi threat grew. Her father escaped with most of his family, while her mother fled with her two sisters, leaving behind her parents, who perished in the Holocaust. After the war, both sought to reach Mandatory Palestine but were detained by the British in Cyprus, where they met, before moving to Costa Rica.
According to a UN press release from 2006, she attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied economics and sociology. In 2020, she spoke at an Israeli tech event co-sponsored by Israeli government ministries.
However, her positions on Israel, the Palestinians and the wider Middle East conflict do not appear to diverge significantly from those of the UN leadership. In a November 2023 speech following Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, Grynspan condemned "the horrific loss of civilian lives' both in the Hamas attack and in Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza, including strikes affecting civilians, hospitals, shelters, schools and UN facilities."
Under her leadership, the UN body she heads released reports on the economic impact of the Israel-Gaza war. In 2024, it found that the Palestinian economy had suffered its steepest-ever decline amid the war, with the entire population of Gaza falling below the poverty line. It added that even under an optimistic reconstruction scenario backed by substantial foreign aid, Gaza would need several decades to return to prewar living standards.
While Israeli officials have yet to publicly comment on the possibility that Grynspan could succeed Guterres, the right-wing pro-Israel NGO UN Watch described her candidacy as "raising concerns that the same patterns of bias and politicization [currently in the UN] would persist."
Whoever wins will have to tackle multiple crises, including several wars, cutbacks in U.S. contributions to the UN, and the 193-member body's declining political relevance as Washington has pulled out of dozens of its agencies.
Securing the council's recommendation will require a formal vote, expected once one candidate shows a strong chance of prevailing, with at least nine positive votes and no "discourage" votes from the five permanent members — France, Britain, the U.S., Russia and China. Friday's ballot did not show how those five members voted.
Five of six polls in recent months showed Grynspan, 70, narrowly ahead, with one poll in August placing Guyana's UN ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett in the top spot.
On Friday, Rodrigues-Birkett received eight votes in favor, coming in third, while Argentina's Rafael Grossi, the director general of the UN nuclear watchdog, came in second with nine "encourage" votes.
Friday also marked the first poll since United Arab Emirates diplomat Lana Nusseibeh entered the race, but the Middle Eastern contender and former ambassador to the UN came in fourth with seven votes in favor, six against and two marked as "no opinion."
When Guterres was chosen in October 2016, it took six straw polls for the council to reach agreement.
In an interview earlier this month, the Costa Rican economist told Reuters that the UN has become too risk-averse and its next leader must be prepared to bear the cost of diplomatic failure and to try again.
(c) 2026, Haaretz
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