General Assembly Resumes Voting

General Assembly Resumes Voting On Non-Permanent Member Of Security Council

New York, Oct 19 2006 12:00PM

The United Nations General Assembly was still deadlocked after resuming voting today in the contest to fill a non-permanent seat on the Security Council allocated to the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, with Guatemala leading Venezuela but falling short of the necessary majority.

In today’s first round of balloting, which takes the total number of rounds held so far to 23, Guatemala obtained 108 votes and Venezuela received 77, both below the 124 votes required to reach a two-thirds majority of Member States present and voting. There were five abstentions.

Guatemala and Venezuela are contending to serve as a non-permanent Council member for a two-year term starting 1 January 2007, replacing Argentina.
Balloting will continue until a State from the region achieves the required majority. There is no limit to the number of rounds of voting and in 1979-80 there were a record 155 ballots before Mexico was chosen from the Latin American and Caribbean Group to serve a two-year term.
On Tuesday Assembly members, following an agreed geographic allocation, elected Belgium, Indonesia, Italy and South Africa to serve as non-permanent members starting 1 January next year. They will replace Denmark, Greece, Japan and Tanzania when their terms end on 31 December.

The Council’s five other non-permanent members, whose terms end on 31 December 2007, are Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia. The five permanent members, which are the only members with veto power when voting, are China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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