Q COSTA RICA — The world could have its first woman leading the United Nations, and that woman could be Costa Rican, in the U.N.’s 80-year history.

A first informal U.N. Security Council poll on Thursday showed former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as the ‌early frontrunner to become the next U.N. secretary-general.

Reuters reported that in the non-binding “straw poll” voting by the 15 members of the Security Council, Grynspan received 10 “encourage” votes to nine for former Guyanese Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and seven for Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, diplomats said.

The other candidates are former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, former Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, former Senegalese ​President Macky Sall, and Ugandan diplomat Olara Otunnu, who entered the race last week.

Rebeca Grynspan, the current head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development since September 13, 2021, and former vice president of Costa Rica in the Figueres administration 1994-1998, emerged as the frontrunner.

However, the road ahead is long. The final outcome depends on the position of the five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom—who hold veto power and have not yet revealed their preferences.

The process will continue for several months before Portugal’s Antonio Guterres’s term ends on December 31, 2026, after ​two five-year terms.