Emirati diplomat who helped deliver aid to Gaza enters UN secretary general race

Lana Nusseibeh has Palestine’s endorsement but faces criticism over UAE’s record on human rights and Sudan

An Emirati diplomat who as UAE ambassador to the UN helped secure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza has entered the race as a late contender to succeed António Guterres as the world body’s secretary general.

Lana Nusseibeh, who is of Palestinian heritage, is widely noted for her advocacy of the Palestinian cause and the two-state solution and has won the endorsement of the state of Palestine.

She is however facing criticism over the UAE’s contested role in arming the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, a group that has been accused of genocide by two successive US administrations.

Nusseibeh, 48, has been one of the leading UAE diplomats denying reports that the UAE supplied weapons to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo in defiance of a UN arms sales ban.

A grouping of Latin American and Caribbean states, CELAC, has also sent a letter of objection to the security council, claiming her late entry came just as a consensus was emerging behind their region holding the UN top job.

Nusseibeh, who was educated at Cambridge University, was born in 1978 in Abu Dhabi, where her father, Zaki, had emigrated after the Arab-Israeli 1967 war made it difficult for him to return to his birthplace, Jerusalem.

She is the niece of Sari Nusseibeh, a distinguished Palestinian intellectual and author of a widely admired book on Palestine, Once Upon a Country.

She has justified her late – but widely predicted – entry into the race on the grounds that the UN security council appears to be close to deadlock on the six remaining candidates in the race, with no one as yet able to establish a clear lead after six rounds of voting, the latest on 16 October.

The latest straw poll – the first in which it was revealed whether any of the five permanent members of the 15-strong UN security council objected to a candidate – ended with Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica holding the lead spot.

But Grynspan faced objections from two unidentified permanent security council members, making it harder for her to claim she is a breakaway consensus candidate. She has support from nine security council members and objections from five. Guterres is due to stand down at the end of the year

Other candidates include: the Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi; the UN envoy from Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett; Olara Otunnu, a distinguished veteran Ugandan diplomat; and Ecuador’s former foreign minister María Fernanda Espinosa. Two previously declared candidates have pulled out.

In her vision statement, Nusseibeh said: “At the heart of the UN sits a wager: that states will give up a little today to gain a great deal together over time.

“States have not stopped needing to partner with one another, but they no longer trust that cooperation will yield sufficient returns. Rebuilding that trust, with faster, more certain, and more realistic results, is the work of the UN.”