U.N. Security Council Picks Five Members For 2 Year Term

UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Jun, 2018 ) ::The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to elect Indonesia, Germany, Belgium, South Africa and the Dominican Republic for a two-year term in the Security Council, the world body's power centre, starting on January 1 2019.

Indonesia overwhelmingly defeated the Maldives in the contested election for one Asia-Pacific seat by 144 to 45, while the other four candidates ran unopposed. Uncontested candidates still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected. There were 190 ballots in Friday’s vote.

Germany received 184 votes, Belgium had 181, South Africa got 183, and the Dominican Republic had 184 after one round of voting.

Regional groups generally agree upon the candidates to put forward and competitive races are increasingly rare.

In a typical year the General Assembly elects five new members, which join the five elected the previous year and the five permanent, veto-power seats: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

The five members giving up their seat at the end of this year are the Netherlands, Sweden, Ethiopia, Bolivia and Kazakhstan.

The five seats not up for election this year are currently held by Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Peru and Poland.