Guatemala, Morocco and Pakistan elected to two-year terms on UN Security Council

Guatemala, Morocco and Pakistan elected to two-year terms on UN Security Council

2011-10-22 16:31:17 GMT+7 (ICT)

UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) -- The United Nations General Assembly on Friday elected Guatemala, Morocco and Pakistan as the non-permanent members of the 15-member Security Council for 2012-13.

The new members received a two-thirds majority of those countries present and voting during the first round of elections held earlier on Friday. UN Member States voted in the General Assembly by secret ballot for five non-permanent seats divided by geographical grouping – three from the Africa and Asia-Pacific grouping, one from Eastern Europe, and one from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Guatemala received 191 votes and was duly elected to the Latin America and Caribbean seat. Morocco received 151 votes and Pakistan received 129 votes, which means they were elected to two of the three seats allocated this year to Africa and the Asia-Pacific.

Togo and Mauritania did not receive enough votes, and so a second round of voting will now take place for the third seat in that region. In the Eastern European category, Azerbaijan received 74 votes, Slovenia picked up 67, and Hungary received 52, which means a second round of balloting must be held for that seat as well.

The five new members will replace the departing members which are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria. They will all vacate their council seats on December 31.

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