The African Union Commission has informed member states that there has been no consensus to endorse former Senegalese President Macky Sall as AU-backed candidate for the position of UN Secretary General.
Sall was nominated by Burundi, incidentally the current AU Chair for 2026. However, Burundi did so individually, directly to the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, through its permanent mission in New York on March 2, 2026.
On Friday, the AU Commission said the period floated to allow member states to adopt a draft resolution endorsing Sall had elapsed, with 20 countries it didn’t name submitting responses, possibly objecting the endorsement.
Member states of the UN may nominate a candidate from any member state to be UN top boss. And members of the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council must endorse him through a vote.
However, the AU routinely backs candidates from member states to pursue continental agency and reduce local turf wars to ensure contenders garner as.many votes abroad.
As such, the AU established a process where candidates’ names are submission of the nomination by the nominating member states to the AU Commission after which the name is circulated to regional groups of member states in a draft proposal seeking to endorse suxh a candidate.
Usually , such a draft may lie before members for sometime and the candidate may be endorsed if no objections are raised. This period, often labelled as ‘silence’ allows member to deliberate and table responses.
The procedure goes through the Permanent Representatives Committee, the Ministerial Committee on Candidatures within the International System, and the Committee to the Executive Council for endorsement or rejection. The AU often works by consensus on such issues, which means a single no means one is not AU-backed.
Sall would be bidding to become the third UN Secretary General from Africa, after Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros Ghali. But the geopolitical tensions attached to the race is shaping it into a rotational bid, with Oceania, Latin America and Europe top contenders.
