Macky Sall’s UN Bid: Senegal Divided, Burundi Backs Ex-President

The reasons behind Sall’s decision to pursue his candidacy through Burundi remain unclear.

Senegalese media recently reported on a letter Sall allegedly sent to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye requesting his support for a UN bid.

According to Souleymane Ba, a consultant in international relations, Sall has a profile suited for the position of UN Secretary-General given his extensive experience in Senegal, having served as a minister, prime minister, president of the National Assembly, and president of the Republic.

“This profile aligns with the conditions required by the United Nations system to hold this position,” he said.

Ba believes Sall’s strengths “are much more important than the weaknesses.”

“During his time as president, he was at the heart of the international agenda. He has a certain mastery of international dynamics, and the country he led was on the same wavelength as the five major powers,” he indicated.

However, he added that “the weaknesses of Macky Sall’s candidacy lie in the controversies related to the end of his mandate, which have caused much ink to flow, citing political violence, the postponement of the presidential election – all of which could constitute black marks” on the former president’s record.

In a post on X, the Executive Director of Amnesty International Senegal, reacted to the announcement of Macky Sall’s candidacy a few days ago.

For Seydi Gassama, “the African Union should not support the candidacy of a former leader whose regime committed serious human rights violations for an elective international position.”

The Executive Director of Amnesty International recalls that “one of the objectives of the African Union is to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and other relevant human rights instruments (Art. 3h Constitutive Act).”

Gassama estimates that the former Senegalese president is implicated in the deaths of more than 70 young people between 2021 and 2024 during political demonstrations, which the Sall regime labeled as insurrections.

Babacar Ba of the Forum for the Defense of Democracy and the Republic (FDR), for his part, calls for transcending political divisions and supporting Macky Sall’s candidacy.

Others point to the former president’s responsibility for a hidden debt of approximately $7 billion revealed by the new authorities and confirmed by the IMF.

On the opposition side, Macky Sall does have support. Abdou Mbow, a member of the National Assembly, has been one of his loyal supporters since leaving office in April 2024.

Mbow, highly critical of the new authorities, announced that “important actors of civil society and trade unions will soon even provide their support in the coming days to Macky Sall’s candidacy as part of an initiative.”

The Front for the Defense of Democracy and the Republic (FDR), an alliance that brings together prominent opposition figures, including Khalifa Sall and Anta Babacar Ngom, also voiced its support for Macky Sall.

The organization even sent a written request to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye asking him to officially support Macky Sall’s candidacy.

Sall’s candidacy is the third officially registered with the United Nations. Two other figures, Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile, and Rafael Mariano Grossi, current director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have also officially submitted their candidacies.

The nomination of the UN Secretary-General follows a well-defined process. The election of the UN Secretary-General is based on resolution 79/327 on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, which defines the selection and nomination process of candidates adopted on September 5, 2025.

Each potential candidate must be officially presented by a member state or a group of member states, but not necessarily their country of origin.

According to the UN, this process will be guided by the principles of transparency and inclusivity.

The process will begin with a letter sent to member states in November 2025 requesting nominations for the position of secretary-general, whose term will begin on January 1, 2027.

According to resolution 79/327, which builds on previous resolutions on the matter, the selection and nomination process for the Secretary-General proceeds as follows:

The joint letters from the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council serve to jointly inform Member States and to transmit the original communications received from Member States submitting candidates.

The President of the General Assembly works closely, transparently and inclusively, with the Member States.

It is indeed only on the recommendation of the Council that the Assembly can elect the Secretary-General for a five-year renewable term.

According to a tradition of geographical rotation not always followed, the position is this time claimed by Latin America.

The President of the UN General Assembly announced that the interactive dialogues, which will be broadcast on the web, will be organized during the week of April 20, 2026.

This will be followed by a phase of candidate evaluation and informal interviews with the Security Council, which often favors consensus for the recommendation.

The process is expected to be completed before the end of 2026 with a recommendation from the Security Council, particularly the five permanent member countries with veto power (United States, China, Russia, United Kingdom, France), whose choices will weigh heavily on the next UN Secretary-General.

The final step will be a formal vote by the General Assembly to appoint the next Secretary-General, who will serve a five-year renewable term.