UNITED NATIONS, June 10 (Xinhua) – Seventeen states were elected on Friday to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the coordinating body for the economic and social work of UN agencies and funds, for a three-year term.
The states were elected by secret ballot with a two-thirds majority of the member states present and voting in the UN General Assembly.
Elected were Botswana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea from African states; China, Laos, Qatar, South Korea from the Asia-Pacific region; Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica from Latin America and Caribbean states; Denmark, Greece, New Zealand, Sweden from Western European and other states; Slovakia and Slovenia from Eastern European states.
They were elected for a three-year term beginning on January 1, 2023.
Of the 17 states, Botswana, China, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, New Zealand and South Korea were re-elected.
In a by-election for rotation within the Western Europe and other states group, Liechtenstein was elected for a one-year term starting on 1 January 2023. It will replace Austria.
Following Friday’s vote, there is still room to fill the Eastern European group for a three-year term starting on 1 January 2023, as no candidate other than Slovakia and Slovenia could get a two – thirds majority after six votes.
In the first round, Russia received 118 votes, 10 votes less than a two-thirds majority. It went into a second round with Northern Macedonia, which received the second largest number of votes in the group after Russia.
In the ensuing rounds, first restrictive then unrestricted, neither Russia nor northern Macedonia could get enough votes for elections. A new set of rounds will take place at a later date to be determined.
ECOSOC has 54 members, who are elected each year by the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms. Seats in the Council are allocated on the basis of geographical representation with 14 seats for African states, 11 for states in the Asia-Pacific region, six for Eastern European states, 10 for Latin American and Caribbean states and 13 for Western Europe and other states.
Source: sn.dk