An indirect presidential election was held to choose the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

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 ...

on 8 June 2012 to replace

Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser ( ar, ناصر عبد العزيز النصر; born 15 September 1952) is a Qatari diplomat and the former permanent representative of Qatar to the United Nations, appointed on 11 September 1998. Prior to this office at ...

and preside over the

Sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly The Sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on 18 September 2012 and having its last scheduled meeting on 11 September 2013. The President of the United Nations General Assembly was chosen from the EEG (the smallest re ...

. It was the rotational turn of the

Eastern European Group The Group of Eastern European States (EEG) is one of the five United Nations regional groups and is composed of 23 Member States from Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. The Group, as with all the regional groups, is a non-binding dialogue ...

to preside over the session.

Vuk Jeremić Vuk Jeremić ( sr-cyr, Вук Јеремић, ; born 3 July 1975) is a Serbian politician and diplomat who served as the president of the United Nations General Assembly from 2012 to 2013 and as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia from 200 ...

is elected with 99 votes for and 85 votes against. This was the first time since 1991 that there was no consensus candidate from the regional grouping, thus invoking a secret ballot vote.

Background

Though there is usually a consensus candidate from the rotational group which is scheduled to hold he post of president of the UNGA, if there is no consensus candidate then a vote is held by

secret ballot The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...

Electorate

The

is the smallest of the

UN regional groups The United Nations Regional Groups are the geopolitical regional groups of member states of the United Nations. Originally, the UN member states were unofficially organized into five groups as an informal means of sharing the distribution of posts ...

with 23 members who are informally entitled to choose a candidate from within their group. Failure to do so would result in a secret ballot amongst the entire

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

(the last time this happened was in 1991 when the Asian Group failed to agree on a candidate out of three options).

Election

Reactions

After his election, Jeremić traveled to China and met vice-president

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...

. In his acceptance speech, Jeremic said:

References

External links

Official election website of Amb. Cekuolis
{{DEFAULTSORT:United Nations General Assembly presidential election, 2012 United Nations General Assembly President Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly 2012 in international relations United Nations General Assembly elections