2011 United Nations Security Council election

Rules

The Security Council has 15 seats, filled by five permanent members and ten non-permanent members. Each year, half of the non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms. A sitting member may not immediately run for re-election.

In accordance with the rules whereby the ten non-permanent UNSC seats rotate among the various regional blocs into which UN member states traditionally divide themselves for voting and representation purposes, the five available seats are allocated as follows:

• Two for the African Group (held by Gabon and Nigeria), with one of them being the "Arab swing seat"
• One for the Asia-Pacific Group (previously called the Asian Group), (held by Lebanon)
• One for the Latin American and Caribbean Group (held by Brazil)
• One for the Eastern European Group (held by Bosnia and Herzegovina)

To be elected, a candidate must receive a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. If the vote is inconclusive after the first round, three rounds of restricted voting shall take place, followed by three rounds of unrestricted voting, and so on, until a result has been obtained. In restricted voting, only official candidates may be voted on, while in unrestricted voting, any member of the given regional group, with the exception of current Council members, may be voted on.

Candidates

Guatemala indicated it would run for the 2012–2013 term, for the seat currently occupied by Brazil. At that time, Guatemala was one of only six original UN Members to have never held a seat on the Security Council.

Azerbaijan, Hungary, and Slovenia all announced their intention to run for the single Eastern European seat. Though Armenia did not run for the seat, the Azerbaijani Trend news agency had previously reported about an Armenian withdrawal of its bid, while reading the alleged candidature as "certainly viewed as Armenia's defeat". The Arab League indicated it would support Azerbaijan's candidature.

Mauritania, Morocco and Togo sought to be elected to the two African seats.

Pakistan had announced its intention to run for the single Asian seat in October 2010. A Pakistani diplomat noted that Pakistan had supported India's candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the 2010 election, and hoped that India would support Pakistan's candidacy in 2011. Fiji had originally sought to run for the seat, but deferred in Pakistan's favour. Kyrgyzstan has also made known its candidacy on 22 September 2011.

Result

African and Asia-Pacific Groups

|MAR:151 |PAK:129 |TGO:119,119,131 |flagcountry:MRT:1959:98,72,61 |KGZ:55 |FIJ:1

Fiji had already withdrawn its campaign in favour of Pakistan before the election.

Latin American and Caribbean Group

|GTM:191

Eastern European Group

Day 1

|AZE:74,90,93,93,93,96,100,110,113 |SVN:67,97,99,98,98,95,91,80,77 |HUN:52,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0 |EST:0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0

After eight rounds of inconclusive voting, General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser initially decided to reschedule the next round of voting for 24 October following the election of members to the Economic and Social Council. However, Azerbaijan requested the ballot be continued for one more hour; the request was agreed to after Russian support despite opposition from France on the basis of a lack of translation services.

Though Estonia had not applied as a candidate, the 6th and 7th rounds, which were unrestricted, each featured one vote for them.

Day 2

|AZE:110,110,111,111,110,117,116,155 |SVN:83,82,81,80,81,76,77,13 |HUN:0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1

After seven additional inconclusive rounds of voting on 24 October, Slovenia's delegation told the General Assembly that while it believed Slovenia would be a good addition for the Security Council, it did not approve of the way in which the election was being held and was withdrawing its candidacy, observing that "the current result speaks for itself and the object of this body’s support is obvious". In the 17th round that followed, Azerbaijan achieved the necessary 2/3 majority and won the Eastern European seat.

Ramifications

With the election of Pakistan to the Security Council, seven of the nine countries known to have nuclear weapons were members of the Council in 2012: China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. (The two nuclear powers not on the Council in 2012 were Israel and North Korea.)

References

References

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