Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland elected to UNSC as non-perm members
Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 10th June. UN General Assembly on Thursday held elections to elect five non-permanent members for the two-year term 2023-24 to the UN Security Council.
Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland were elected to the elite group the UNSC as Non-permanent members for the 2023-2024 term in a uncontested race which would replace India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway at the horse-shoe table from January 1 of 2023.
All five new non permanent members overwhelmingly got two-thirds majority of member states’ votes for their two-year terms on the Council. The terms will start on January 1, 2023.
On Western Europe and other States category, two seats Switzerland received (187 votes) and Malta (185 votes), two seats in African and Asia-Pacific States Mozambique (192 votes) and Japan (184 votes) were elected and for the one seat in the Latin American and Caribbean States category, Ecuador was elected with 190 votes in total.
Security Council seats are allocated based on regional representation and this year, each bloc put forward only a single candidate, to avoid any drama to the final outcome.
Over all campaign was low-key, without any big events by Member States to promote their candidates due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis which prevented such events.
Japan has served 11 terms in the UN Security Council as compare to Switzerland which only joined the United Nations in 2002 and for Mozambique this would be its first time serving.
UNSC deals with the maintenance of international peace and security, and holds the authority to adopt legally binding resolutions, deploy peacekeeping missions and impose sanctions.
Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland will replace exiting members India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway.
The new five members will join the club with Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates, which each have one more year on their non-permanent terms, as well as the five veto-wielding permanent members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
India’s Permanent Mission to the UN congratulated the newly-elected members and wished “them the best for a fruitful and productive tenure.”
India’s two-year term at the UNSC as non-permanent member will end in December 2022, when it was also hold the Presidency of the powerful UN organ.
India has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the 15-nation Council, said it rightly deserves a place as a permanent member of the Council, which in its current form does not represent the geo-political realities of the 21st century.
On the issue of ”categories of membership”, the G4 nations of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have said that only when the permanent seats are expanded, can the decisions of the Council reflect the interests of the broader membership.
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