1976 United Nations Security Council election
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The 1976 United Nations Security Council election was held on 21 October 1976 during the Thirty-first session of the United Nations
General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...
, held at United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The General Assembly elected Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Mauritius, and Venezuela, as the five new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 1977. Both Mauritius and West Germany were elected members of the Council for the first time.


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: *One for
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
countries (held by Tanzania) *One for countries from the Asian Group (now called the Asia- Pacific Group"Asian group of nations at UN changes its name to Asia-Pacific group"
''Radio New Zealand International'', 2011-08-31.) (held by
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
) *One for Latin America and the Caribbean (held by
Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
) *Two for the Western European and Others Group (held by Italy and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
) 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.


Result

The election was managed by then-
President of the United Nations General Assembly The president of the United Nations General Assembly is a position voted by representatives in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on a yearly basis. The president is the chair and presiding officer of the General Assembly. Election ...
Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe, CCS (18 March 1913 – 4 December 1980) was a Sri Lankan diplomat and civil servant. He was High Commissioner to India and concurrently Ambassador to both Nepal and Afghanistan (1963–1967) and Permanent Secretar ...
of
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. The United Nations had 146 member states at this time (for a timeline of UN membership, see Enlargement of the United Nations). Delegates were to write the names of the five member states they wished elected on the ballot papers. Voting was conducted on a single ballot. Ballots containing more states from a certain region than seats allocated to that region were invalidated.


See also

* List of members of the United Nations Security Council * Canada and the United Nations *
Germany and the United Nations The relationship of Germany and the United Nations first began during World War II. The ''United Nations'' then was synonymous with the Allies of World War II and Germany then being the Greater German Reich, a member of the Axis powers. With t ...
* India and the United Nations


References


External links


UN Document A/59/881
Note Verbale from the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica containing a record of Security Council elections up to 2004 {{DEFAULTSORT:United Nations Security Council election,1976 1976 elections
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
Non-partisan elections 1976 in international relations