:Note that this is draft article for The Signpost and has not yet been accepted for publication. Other than the last two paragraphs, it might be ready for basic copy editing.

Politics, at least how the game is played in the U.S. and the U.K., is an especially difficult topic to edit on Wikipedia. Almost everybody seems to have an opinion on candidates and elections and it is difficult to tell if they are just ordinary Wikipedians, ordinary voters, or campaign workers, paid or unpaid, perhaps even the campaign's Director of Communications or the candidates themselves.

We may have reached a problem at a higher level now according to a report in PassBlue, an independent news source that covers the United Nations. One of eight candidates for the post of Secretary-General is expected to be chosen by the member nations to replace António Guterres on January 1.

PassBlue's reporter, Damilola Banjo, identified a total of 335 edits for all eight candidates between Dec. 19, 2024 - Aug. 19, 2026 and examined them individually. The Signpost can confirm her conclusions about all the edits mentioned in her report. She properly noted that "Wikipedia's public records do not identify the real-world identity of its volunteer editors," but does not note the rare case where an editor might falsely identify themselves to cause a candidate embarrassment.

She reported on all eight candidates but focused on three in particular

• Macky Sall served two terms as president of Senegal from 2012-2024. The announcement that he was a candidate for the secretary-generalship was made on March 2 of this year. Three days later Wikipedia editor User:Mamadoudiallo26 made two consecutive edits to the article about Sall.

The first edit changed "Sall stirred controversy for undemocratic maneuvers, including repressing the political opposition in Senegal and attempting a self-coup, which sparked the 2023–2024 Senegalese protests" (which was well justified by the four references [Journal of Democracy][Journal of Democracy][The Conversation][Foreign policy (paywalled)] to "Sall faced criticism over governance issues, including tensions with the political opposition and constitutional debates that contributed to the 2023–2024 protests in Senegal."

While the replacement edit seems a bit calmer than the original and at first glance appears to be more compliant with Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people it is not consistent with the four sources cited, Sall, according to those mostly scholarly sources, definitely engaged in undemocratic maneuvers, political repression, and staged a self-coup (sometimes called an executive coup) which resulted in violence in the streets. The sources were concerned that Sall's coup would be the end of Senegalese democracy. Wikipedia needs to tell it like it is on this one.

The second edit announced Sall's candidacy on Wikipedia. These two edits are still in the article using the same citations.

• The article on Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan suffered from an edit war from April 20 through May 4, 2026. A 1,200 word section titled "Controversies" was inserted and reverted 17 times. One revert suggested in the edit summary that the long section was being inserted by somebody related to Inner City Press. The edit summary reads, in part

"The controversy section relies on one source (Inner City Press) and edits seem to have been introduced during the SG campaign process. … It appears the editor is pursuing an agenda to discredit this person at the height of the SG election campaign process. Suggest to remove the entries due to single source reliance."

Inner City Press is a one-reporter, New York newsgathering service that specializes in reporting UN news, according to Columbia Journalism Review. He was banned from UN press conferences starting in 2018 and his website has not been listed at WP:RSPS. One editor, User:Blackandyellow412, who added the controversy section has been blocked for sockpuppeting along with User:NYMediaGuy and User:Voila34228 in a case involving undeclared paid editing (UPE).

• "Promotional material" was removed from the Wikipedia article about María Fernanda Espinosa by the widely respected User:Mean as custard in December 2024, well before her nomination.

After the nomination an editor inserted a little known award into the article."User:Zhefeng1, the user that tried inserting the award, was created on June 11, 2026, and its first edit added that Espinosa had been named among Illuminem's "Most-Read Thought Leaders in Social Responsibility for 2026." "Espinosa's campaign denied having a relationship with Illuminem." Illuminem is [(a blacked-listed link on Wikipedia] which - for a fee - will publish an article, feature it on its website and give the author an official sounding award. Finally, on July 15, the Wikipedia article was tagged as being promotional.

The other five candidates were mentioned briefly:

• Rafael Grossi, is likely the best known of all the candidates. He is the director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, and announced his candidacy for secretary-general in late 2025. He has been in the news regarding the possible development of nuclear weapons by Iran. Before his candidacy he was accused in the article about him of favoring the US and Israeli positions over the Iranian position.

• Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett a Guyanese CV style profile
• Michelle Bachelet another CV?
• Olara Otunnu of Uganda has had a long and distinguished career as a politician and diplomat. His candidacy was briefly noted in the article about him.
• Ivonne A-Baki has held several political offices in Ecuador as well as diplomatic positions including Ecuador's ambassador to France and to the United States. After she announced her candidacy in August an editor with an interest in diplomacy and just 21 edits [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivonne_Baki&diff=1370015804&oldid=1347984571 added her candidacy and a vision statement to the article introduction.

While it is disturbing that Wikipedia appears to have been used by some of the candidates for the United Nations Secretary-General to promote their candidacies, any violations of Wikipedia rules seems to be minor compared to the violations generally reported in this column. The United Nations is too important in world diplomacy to go down that road. The PassBlue article gives several good examples of how UN officials should not interact with Wikipedia.