Slovenia competes with Belarus for a seat in the UN Security Council

Today, the United Nations General Assembly is set to conduct a secret ballot for non-permanent members of the Security Council for the 2024-25 term. Slovenia's competitor is Belarus. To secure a seat, a country needs 128 votes. The UN has 193 members, hence 129 votes are required, but Venezuela will not be allowed to participate in the voting due to unpaid dues to the organization's budget, reports RTV.SLO.

Representatives of the Slovenian delegation expressed optimism before departure. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has spent the last few months focusing all its efforts on lobbying to secure enough support, and thus, the desired approval.

Slovenia has previously served as a non-permanent member in 1998-1999, and later in 2011, it vied for the position but was unsuccessful.

Let's recall that today, the United Nations General Assembly will elect five non-permanent members of the Security Council for a two-year term, beginning January 1, 2024.

Since 1965, the Security Council consists of 15 member states. These include five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

And ten members, elected for two years by the General Assembly, in accordance with geographical distribution. Each regional group has a designated number of seats:

3 for the African group;

2 for the Asia-Pacific group;

2 for the Latin American and Caribbean group;

1 for the Eastern European group;

2 for the Western European and other groups.

Half of the elected member seats are renewed every year. For this term, six countries are candidates for the five available seats: Algeria, Belarus, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia.

The elected countries will replace Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Security Council member election procedure is conducted through a secret ballot. To secure a seat, a country must receive votes from two-thirds of the member states present and voting at the General Assembly session. This means that a minimum of 129 positive votes is required for election if all 193 UN member states are present and voting. Sometimes several rounds of voting are needed to decide between candidates and for the election of a state.

Voting will commence on June 6 at 4:00 PM Central European Time. The number of voting rounds is unlimited, and a country can also decide to withdraw from the contest at any point. For example, in 2011, Slovenia withdrew from the contest after the 16th round of voting, and Azerbaijan became a non-permanent member.