Can an African Man Lead the UN?

Africa has not held the UN Secretary-General position in twenty years. Macky Sall wants to change that. But his path to the world's top diplomatic job runs through a fractured African Union that never officially backed him, a home country that publicly distanced itself, and a domestic record that hands his critics easy ammunition. Learning Africa goes inside the 2026 UN Secretary-General race: the politics, the person, and the question that outlasts any single candidacy: whose turn is it to lead the world, and who decides? 

Transcript

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On April 22nd, 2026, a man walked into the United Nations headquarters in New York, sat before the member states of the world, and made his case to lead the planet. His name is Makisal. He is 64 years old, a former president of Senegal, former chair of the ICOAS, and former chairperson of the African Union. If things go his way, the next Secretary General of the United Nations. He told the room that the world stands at a crossroads between corporation and fragmentation, that there is a need for a UN that is more responsive, more equitable, and more accountable to the global south. It was a polished performance, confident, fluent, presidential. And yet, sitting in my living room watching an African man make his speech to run the most influential and important institution in global governance, I couldn't stop thinking about everything happening just outside the frame. The controversy that followed him to New York, the country he left behind, the continent that couldn't agree on whether to back him. This episode is about what Makisal's bid for UN Secretary General tells us about how Africa operates on the world stage and what it would mean if he won. I have spent years trying to understand this continent, its politics, its people, its contradictions, its possibilities. The more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to learn. My name is Amadou. This is Learning Africa, where I think out loud about the continent, all of it. Let's get into it. Antonio Guterres, the current UN Secretary General, steps down on December 31st, 2026. The world needs a new person in the role by January 1st, 2027. The process for choosing that person is frankly one of the most opaque in international diplomacy. It's not a public vote. It's not a campaign in the way we usually think of that word. The Secretary General is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council, which means one veto and a candidacy dies. As of the time of recording, there are four serious candidates in the field. Rafael Grossi from Argentina, who currently runs the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rebecca Grispen from Costa Rica, who leads the UN Conference on Trade and Development, Michelle Bashley from Chile, a former president and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Makisal. There is also an informal norm, though not a rule, around regional rotation. Latin America has not held the post for about 40 years now, which makes the field heavily weighted towards that region discipline. Eastern Europe is also considered to be in line, having never held the role. And there is also another pressure sitting across all of the regional arguments. A growing global campaign for the first ever female Secretary General. The UN has never had a woman in the role in its 80 years history. With two women, Basley and Greenspan, that campaign has real momentum and real backing. If that argument gains traction with the Security Council permanent members, it cuts across every regional rotation claim, including Africa's. Makisal faces that headwind too. Africa, though it has had two secretary generals, Boutros Boutros Kali of Egypt, who served from 1992 to 1996, and Kofi Annan of Ghana, who served from 1997 to 2006. It has not had representation for 20 years, and none from Francophone Africa, and none in a world that looks anything like today's. Makisal's campaign leans heavily into this. He is positioning himself as the candidate of the global south, of Africa specifically, of those who feel that global institutions have consistently served the powerful while leaving the vulnerable to negotiate with whatever scraps remain. He is calling for Secretary Council reform, for debt restriction that doesn't strangle developing economies, for a UN that actually shows up when it matters. Those are the right arguments. They are arguments that resonate across this continent deeply. And coming from a man who spent 12 years running an African country, who chaired the African Union, who has sat across the table from the IMF and the World Bank and the G7, they are not empty words. But here is the first complication, and it is a big one. For Makisal to have a real shot at the Secretary General position, he needs Africa behind him. Unified, unambiguous African support would send a signal to the rest of the world. This is our candidate. Back him. That unity never came. Here is what actually happened, and it is worth understanding in some details because it tells you a great deal about how African multilateralism works and where it fells. On March 2nd, 2026, Bundi officially submitted Sal's nomination to the United Nations. Bundi was able to do this because it currently holds the chairmanship of the African Union Assembly, and Burundian President Evarist Ndaishime signed the letter in his capacity as AU chair, which created the impression in many media reports that the African Union had officially endorsed Macky Salle. It had not. The African Union has a formal process for endorsing candidates for international positions. Macky Sall's name never went through that process. It was not on the list. The EU's own internal analysis body later stated plainly, Makisal is not an official candidate of the African Union. What Saul had done was something clever and more controversial. He approached Burundi, not his own country of Senegal, not through the official AU process, but the current chair of the AU and convinced them to submit his name directly to the UN. It was a smart move. It created the optics of a EU endorsement without actually having it. When this became clear, the response from other African states was swift. Burundi attempted to get retroactive AU endorsement through a so-called silent procedure. Twenty EU member states broke the silence. Twenty members objected, including Sal's home country of Senegal. The endorsement failed. It was a public and embarrassing collapse. The process had been irregular, rust, and had bypassed the established rules that exist precisely to ensure Africa speaks with one voice on these things. And then there is Senegal itself, the country that Sal led for 12 years. His own successor, President Basiru Jomaifai, publicly stated that his government was not consulted, has not endorsed the candidacy, and in fact welcomed the AU's failure to reach consensus. His own country, with all due diplomatic language, was signaling this is not our candidate. McIsal's campaign is continuing. He has individual supporters. And his team is arguing that the countries that stayed silent during the procedure were effectively not objecting. But that argument is thin, and most observers have not bought it. So here is the question this raises for me. Not about Sal personally, but about Africa. If the continent cannot organize itself to either back or reject one of its own candidates for the world's top job through a credible, unified, rules-based process, what does that say about Africa's readiness to claim the influence it keeps asking and saying it deserves? That's a hard question, but it's an honest one. I want to now spend some time on Macky Sall, the person, because he's not a simple figure. Mackie rose through Senegalese politics as a protest of then President Abdullah Wad. He became Prime Minister at 43, then won the presidency in 2012 on a platform of good governance. He promised to reduce presidential terms, to strengthen democratic institutions, to break with the worst habits of his predecessor, and in some ways he delivered. GDP grew from 17 billion to $27 billion during his tenure. He built airports, a new city outside of Dakar, an express rail link industrial parks. He helped resolve the long-running conflict in Kazamas, and he played a significant role in pushing out Gambia's dictator, Yaya Jame, in 2017. Internationally, he was respected. He chaired the African Union. He championed Africa's debt cancellation on the global stage. He sat in G7 meetings and said the things that needed saying about a global financial system that extracts more from Africa than it returns. These are not nothing. But his final years in office cast a long shadow. Senegal has long been considered one of West Africa's most stable democracies, a country that has managed three peaceful transfers of power since independence. That reputation took serious damage on the SAL. His administration was accused of weaponizing the justice system against political opponents. His most dangerous political rival, Usman Sonko, was imprisoned on charges that many in and outside Senegal regarded as politically motivated. And then in February 2024, weeks before a scheduled presidential election, Sall announced he was postponing the vote indefinitely. It was unprecedented in Senegalese history. The Constitutional Council later ruled it unconstitutional and ordered elections to proceed, but the damage was done. The man who had promised to strengthen democracy had in his final chapter done the thing African leaders are never supposed to do. Tried to hold on. He did ultimately leave office. His chosen successor lost, and Sal has been living in Morocco since, running a management consultancy, leading an opposition coalition by speaker phone, and now campaigning for the UN's top job. His successor's government has hinted that legal proceedings may be coming. The new Prime Minister has spoken of high treason in connection with what he calls the catastrophic state of public finances left behind. To be clear, none of this has been proven in court, and it may never be. Politics in Senegal, like everywhere, is bruising and personal and not always fair. But a man who wants to be the global symbol of diplomacy, accountability, and the rule of law cannot simply waive questions about his own record on those things at home. This is the tension that makes Sall's candidacy genuinely interesting rather than just politically convenient. He is not a villain, he is also not uncomplicated, and the world, if it is paying attention, will ask the hard questions. Let me now step back from the man and think about the idea. Because regardless of what you think about Macky Sall specifically, the idea of an African Secretary General of the United Nations in 2027 matters. The United Nations was built by the victors of World War II. Its permanent Security Council membership has not changed in 80 years. It still reflects a world order that existed before most of Africa was independent. The institution was designed in a moment when the countries it now serves most didn't yet have seats at the table. And in many ways, the original design still saves who gets listened to and who doesn't. Africa is the fastest growing region on earth. It will be home to the majority of the world's youngest people within a generation. It holds some of the most significant reserves of the critical minerals that the global energy transition depends on. And yet, its voice in the institutions that govern trade, debt, climate, and conflict remains structurally weak. The informal regional rotation that has guided UN Secretary General appointments is not a guarantee. It is a norm. And norms only hold if powerful states choose to honor it. An African Secretary General, a credible one with genuine continental backing, arriving in that role with a mandate to reform global governance could matter. Not because the Secretary General has unlimited power. The role is often described as the world's most important civil servant, not its most powerful leader. But the bully pulpit is real. The ability to frame conversations, to set agendas, to make certain things impossible to ignore, that is real. The problem with Saul's candidacy is that it has arrived without that credibility infrastructure. No unified continental backing, his own country distensed, a domestic record that hands critics easy ammunition, and a selection process where ultimately the five members of the Security Council hold the veto, meaning Washington, Beijing, Moscow, London, and Paris will decide. Countries that do not have an obvious interest in an African reformist agenda leading the institution through which they exercise global influence. The structural reality is not Saul's fault. It is the reality any African candidate would face. But it means that the path to victory runs not through rhetoric about Africa's time, but through quiet, painstaking diplomacy with exactly the powers whose global dominance the candidate is challenging. It is a paradox, and it is one that Saul with his background might actually be suited to navigate if he can survive the scrutiny. If he can survive the scrutiny of his own record first. Across Africa, there are people who hear about Mackisall's candidacy and feel something. Not necessarily about the man, but about the idea. That is not a small thing. Kofi Anan's tenure as Secretary General meant something to this continent. And it might have been hard to put that into words, but it was impossible to miss. Representation at that level sends a signal about who belongs in rooms of power, about whose experience and judgment the world considers relevant to its biggest problems. But representation without accountability is not enough. If Africa wants a seat at the table, Africa has to demonstrate that it can hold its own to the same standards it demands of others. A candidate whose own country has stepped away from him, a nomination process that bypassed the continent's own rules, these are not obstacles thrown up by outsiders. They are self-inflicted and they matter. Not because they disqualify Saul, but because they reveal the work that still needs to be done. The world's most important diplomatic job may or may not go to an African discipline. The permanent members of the Security Council will have the final word as they always do. But what Africa does with this moment, whether it learns to coordinate, to enforce its own processes, to present a candidate with both ambition and clean hands, that will determine whether this is just a story or the beginning of something. If this episode has raised more questions than it answered, that's great. That's just the point. Africa is not a simple story, and I am not going to tell it like one.