The United Nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Friday with no suspense because all were unopposed -- Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Albania, Ghana and Gabon.
Winning
a seat on the 15-member Security Council is considered a pinnacle of
achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues
of international peace and security ranging from conflicts in Syria, Yemen,
Mali and Myanmar to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran, and
attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.
It will
be Albania’s first time serving on the council and Brazil’s 11th time, which
will tie Japan as the country elected to the council for the most two-year
terms. There had been a three-way race for two African seats but Congo dropped
out on Monday.
General
Assembly President Volkan Bozkir announced the results of the secret-ballot
vote and congratulated the winner.
The five
new council members will start their terms on Jan. 1, replacing five countries
whose two-year terms end on Dec. 31 -- Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam.
They
will join the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council -- the United
States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France -- and the five countries
elected last year: India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway.
Before
COVID-19, countries running for Security Council seats often invited
ambassadors for lavish visits to their nations, put on dinners and held
receptions with entertainments, and sent senior government officials around the
globe lobbying for votes. But the pandemic has curtailed all of that since
March 2020.
Last
year, the election for new council members was held under dramatically
different voting procedures because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead
of having ambassadors from the 193 U.N. member nations in the General Assembly
chamber together for elections, a new procedure was adopted. A few ambassadors
arrived at the assembly during spaced-out time slots to avoid a large gathering
and ensure social distancing, and deposited ballots in a large box not only for
new Security Council members but for other positions.
In
recent months, the assembly has been meeting in person, with just two diplomats
allowed from each country. So on Friday ambassadors were able to deposit their
ballots one-by-one in a large box.
Even if
a country is running unopposed, it must obtain the votes of two-thirds of the
member states that voted in order to win a seat on the council.
In
Friday’s ballot, Ghana received 185 votes, Gabon 183 votes, Brazil 181 votes,
UAE 179 votes and Albania 175 votes.
https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-general-assembly-united-nations-gabon-ghana-middle-east-738c4a5a12007e97d3267364249b7904