Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2026, 21:19 by Writer
President Irfaan Ali on Thursday issued a stirring appeal to the Permanent Members of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council and other member states of the U.N. to support Guyana’s nominee, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, to become the next Secretary General of the global body.
“In the humblest of ways, I call on the P5 (permanent members), the Security Council, and every member, and every member here, to look beyond the small country that nominated her,” he told the 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly.
The Guyanese leader made no reference to the United States’ reported veto of Ms Rodrigues-Birkett, currently Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, because she described the situation in Palestine as “genocide”.
However, he appealed to the P5 — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — to support her to become the next UN chief.
“The responsibility for recommending the next Secretary General rests in the first instance with the Security Council, and we therefore, respectfully, place before its members the candidature of Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett endorsed by the Caribbean Community. We invite all to consider her candidacy on its merits, and to judge whether her vision, experience, expertise, and record can help restore confidence in the United Nations at this critical moment,” he said.
Ms Rodrigues-Birkett was at the helm of Guyana’s delegation as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council for the 2024–2025 term.
President Ali said the U.N. “needs leadership capable of restoring trust without compromising principles, of listening without surrendering conviction, of building bridges across the widening chasms between north and south, large states and small states, and the developed and developing world. We need a Secretary-General who will defend the (U.N.) Charter not only when it is politically convenient, but precisely when its principles are under pressure,” he said.
Touching on Palestine, he reiterated Guyana’s call for a just and lasting solution to the crisis in the Middle East, that brings an end to the suffering of innocent civilians and recognises the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to self-determination and to secure a homeland of their own.
“We reiterate our support for a two-state solution,” he said.
Departing from his prepared speech, Dr Ali said Ms Rordrigues-Birkett, who hails from an Indigenous community in Region One (Barima/Waini) and went on to become Amerindian affairs minister and later Guyana’s foreign minister, is guided by her upbringing, struggle, and accomplishments by breaking barriers.
“An Indigenous woman coming from a small indigenous village, defying the odds, the odds against indigenous persons, the odds against women, the odds against poverty, defining every challenge, and rising to the top amidst those challenges. Her character is built on struggle, sacrifice, commitment. Her accomplishments are crafted in her humanity,” he said.
