MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

U.N. set to elect new non-permanent members

The United Nations General Assembly will hold elections on Monday morning to choose five non-permanent members of the Security Council to serve two-year terms starting on 1 January 2007.

Eight countries are contesting five seats that are divided according to an agreed geographical allocation, and the winning nations will replace Argentina, Denmark, Greece, Japan and Tanzania when their terms end on 31 December.

Guatemala and Venezuela will vie for the seat awarded to a member of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, while Indonesia, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Nepal are competing for the Asian Group seat.

The elections in the other regions are uncontested. South Africa is the only candidate for the African Group seat and Belgium and Italy are the only contenders for the Western European and Others Group, where two seats have been allocated. But formal balloting will still take place for those seats on Monday because the Council is a principal organ of the UN.

Elections to the Council are held by secret ballot, and a winning candidate requires a two-thirds majority of ballots cast by the Assembly membership. If there is no clear winner in the first ballot for the Asian Group seat, then the lowest-polling candidate drops out and the contest moves to a ballot between the two remaining candidates. Once there are only two candidates, voting proceeds until one candidate prevails.

In the Asian race, all three competing countries have previously served on the Council ? Nepal and Indonesia twice and the Republic of Korea once, in 1996-97. Nepal last served in 1988-89, while Indonesia was most recently a Council member in 1995-96.

In the contest in the Latin America and the Caribbean Group, Guatemala has never served on the Council before, while Venezuela has been a member four times, most recently in 1992-93.

The Council's five other non-permanent members, whose terms end on 31 December 2007, are Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia. The five permanent members are China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. (UN)