Michelle Bachelet, a trailblazer for Latin America as its first woman to serve as defense minister and the first elected as Chilean president, now aims to become the UN’s first female secretary general, and says the world is “ready.”
The 74-year-old, who served two terms as Chile’s president, was nominated for the UN’s top job in September by her country’s outgoing leftist leader Gabriel Boric.
She is now seeking the backing of his elected successor, right-winger Jose Antonio Kast, who she met on Monday.
After that meeting, Bachelet told AFP “the world is ready” for a woman to take over and make “a different contribution through a different kind of leadership.”
If chosen, she said she would help the United Nations “modernize and become more efficient, more effective, and more transparent.”
The UN, 80 years old this year, has never had a woman at the helm and only one Latin American — Peruvian diplomat Javier Perez de Cuellar who served as secretary general from 1982 to 1991.
The post traditionally rotates between world regions, with Latin America next in line as Portuguese Antonio Guterres’s term comes to an end.
After serving her first term as Chilean president from 2006 to 2010, Bachelet became the first head of the then-newly created UN Women agency.
She served as Chile’s president again from 2014 to 2018, then as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On the topic of growing tensions between Venezuela and the United States, which has deployed a massive naval force in the Caribbean, bombed alleged drug-smuggling boats and seized oil tankers, Bachelet said non-UN mediation may be the best option.
The presidents of Brazil and Mexico, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Claudia Sheinbaum, have both offered to step in.
“It doesn’t always have to be the full General Assembly, the full Security Council. Probably when one of the countries involved in a conflict is a member of the Security Council and has veto power, that is often not the best place to seek a solution,” she said.
The United States is one of five permanent members of the council, with veto power.
“I think having such powerful mediators from the region… could be a solution, it could be a good response,” added Bachelet.
Three other Latin American women are in the running for the UN top job: Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development; Mexican Environment Minister Alicia Barcena; and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
The other candidate is International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi from Argentina.
