Race to the UN: Bachelet ready to collaborate with Trump despite disagreements

Former president of Chile and High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet she said she was ready to collaborate with the US president Donald Trumpalthough the United States did not support his candidacy for UN secretary general due to his anti-abortion position. Meeting journalists at the UN Palace on the first day of the election campaign, Bachelet said she “had good relations” with Washington in the past, when she was president of Chile, and that she was “ready to collaborate with everyone”, but also maintained that she “really believes in women’s rights”. “I don’t think – she added – that we can decide which rights women should have and which not, I think they should decide about their own lives”.

Bachelet is officially one of the four candidates to succeed the secretary general Antonio Guterreswhose mandate will expire on December 31 this year. The others are the Argentine Rafael Grossidirector of the International Energy Agency, and currently considered the favorite; the former vice president of Costa Rica Rebecca Grynspan and the former president of Senegal Macky Sallthe only candidate not to be part of the Latin American area. The nomination process includes hearings before the 193 member states of the UN as well as meetings with civil society. The transition to the General Assembly, which is responsible for the formal vote, is important, but the real key moment will be the transition to the vote in the Security Council. It is here that the new secretary is decided and the veto power of the five permanent members, which are the USA, China, Russia, Great Britain and France, always applies.

Republican senators in the US Congress have already expressed a negative opinion on Bachelet, accused of being “too aligned” against abortion. Many see her as too much of a leader to fill a role that requires a more malleable figure, particularly at a time when some countries, including the United States, Russia and Israel, want to see the power of the United Nations diminished. Furthermore, in eighty years of history, a woman has never been elected. When asked what she thought, Bachelet replied: “In 2016 there were many women candidates but in the end it didn’t happen. Let’s say that perhaps the world wasn’t ready. Will it be ready now? I hope so, because I believe that if we really want a UN that represents the world, we also need to consider two things: that it is a woman and that it represents a particular region.” “I – he added – believe in skills, we have very capable men and women leaders in the world”.