00:04Welcome back. We are live from the United Nations in New York City. I'm Hazlinda Armin.
00:10And I'm Romain Bostic. We just heard from six candidates vying to be the next Secretary General of the United
00:17Nations.
00:17We spent upwards of an hour and a half here peppering them with questions and we got a lot of
00:23varied answers.
00:23Oh, you're right. But you know, Romain, it is worth noting one of them could be the next Secretary General.
00:28But we know that President Trump, according to some reports, he has other suggestions.
00:33I mean, he's talking about possibly the FIFA president becoming the man.
00:37But of course, the candidate will have to be approved by the 15 Security Council members.
00:43And those Security Council members obviously have a veto power, of course, the permanent five members of that Security Council.
00:50But it gets to the heart of the issue as to exactly not only what those members want from their
00:55new Secretary General,
00:57but what do the people out there actually want?
01:00And we actually took a poll of the folks here in the audience to address some of those questions.
01:05And what are the most important topics for the future Secretary General?
01:09That was the question posed to our audience.
01:12And of course, solving conflicts came in tops at 58 percent.
01:16Then we have protecting human rights coming in at 46 percent, upholding the UN Charter 45 percent.
01:24It is interesting.
01:24When you hear the candidates speaking, they talked about rebuilding trust, rebuilding credibility.
01:30That seems to be key for the candidates.
01:31Yeah, Macky Sala Senegal used that word repeatedly.
01:34You even heard from Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina talking about this idea.
01:39I think he used the phrase, a new deal.
01:41A new deal with regard to the relationship that the UN has with its member states and, of course, with
01:47the people as well.
01:48It is a challenging situation, though, because, you know, credibility is at stake right now.
01:56I mean, a lot of questions, you know, where has the UN been when it comes to the wars that
02:01we're seeing, the conflicts that we're seeing around the world?
02:03It has not been present.
02:05Well, it's kind of interesting, too.
02:06We heard from Maria Fernanda Espinoza talking about this idea of actually trying to prevent some of these conflicts before
02:12they start.
02:13And you pushed back on a couple of the responses there as to exactly how they would be able to
02:19negotiate with the world powers who are at the center of a lot of these conflicts and whether they would
02:23be receptive.
02:24Well, the question is that paralysis, right?
02:26I mean, that veto power that the Permanent Five had.
02:31It takes only one of them to veto, and it's over.
02:34And we should point out the selection process is going on right now.
02:37There are straw polls behind the scenes to determine who is liked best.
02:42And at some point, probably in the month of September, we will actually have a selection.
02:47I do think we want to go to the next question because there were three questions that we polled our
02:51audiences on.
02:52I'm not sure we have the results up just quite yet here.
02:55But it really gets to this idea of exactly what the people are looking for when it comes to the
03:01priorities
03:01and obviously the idea of who's best suited to actually carry forward some of the reforms known as UNA.
03:06You know, it is interesting because someone once said the role and the position of the Secretary General is an
03:13impossible role.
03:14But if you're looking for one, you can look back to history.
03:17You know, some talk about Dag Hammerskart.
03:20I mean, there is that speech just down the road, and they talk about how he has been the epitome,
03:27the gold standard, if you wish,
03:28of someone who's been actively involved in making those decisions.
03:33Well, and you can hear the people behind us.
03:35They just put one of the polls up on the screen here of who the audience actually thinks would be
03:40best suited to carry forward those UNA.
03:4280 reforms.
03:44Overwhelmingly, Caroline Rodriguez Burkett at 46 percent.
03:47The next closest candidate is Michelle Bachelet at 14.
03:50And, of course, we have Rebecca Greenspan at 13 percent, too.
03:54You know, it is worth noting as well, in the 80-year history of the U.N., there has never
03:59been a woman leading the organization.
04:01There has never been a woman Secretary General.
04:04So perhaps this could be an indication we could see the first.
04:09Absolutely.
04:09And this is something that several of the candidates talked about in their prepared remarks,
04:13the idea that when we get forward, where are we going to have true representation?
04:18The final question, who convinced you the most in this town hall and according to the audience polls?
04:23Once again, Caroline Rodriguez Burkett of Guyana, 49 percent.
04:28Overwhelming.
04:29And then comes Maria Fernanda Espinosa.
04:33That's a tie with Maki Cell, by the way.
04:36Absolutely.
04:37It was a wonderful evening, and I hope that our viewers and our audiences got a lot out of it.
04:40That will do it for us at the United Nations.
04:43This is Bloomberg.
04:44Version 2.
04:44.
