The 1997 United Nations Security Council election was held on 14 October 1997 at
United Nations Headquarters in
New York City during the 52nd 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 ...
. The General Assembly elected five non-permanent members of the
UN Security Council for two-year terms commencing on 1 January 1998.
The five candidates elected were
Bahrain,
Brazil,
Gabon,
Gambia
The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
, and
Slovenia with Bahrain, Gambia and Slovenia being elected for the first time.
Geographic distribution
In accordance with the General Assembly's
rules for the geographic distribution of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, and established practice, the members were to be elected as follows: two from Africa, one from Asia, one from Latin American and the Caribbean Group (GRULAC), and one from 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 ...
. By unofficial custom, the seat from Asia was to be filled by a member of the
Arab League
The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...
, as the previous holder of the "Arab seat" was African Egypt.
Candidates
There was a total of six candidates for the five seats. The only seat contested was that of the Eastern European Group:
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia competed for the one available seat. The other groups all had a number of candidates equal to the number of seats to fill: Gabon and Gambia for the two African seats, Bahrain for the one Asian seat, and Brazil for the one GRULAC seat.
Results
Voting proceeded by secret ballot. For each geographic group, each member state could vote for as many candidates as were to be elected. There were 174 ballots in each of the three elections.
African and Asian States
Latin American and Caribbean States
Eastern European Group
With Macedonia losing to Slovenia, and all the other candidates securing their respective majority supports of 2/3, the final result was as follows: Bahrain, Brazil, Gabon, Gambia, and Slovenia were elected to serve two-year terms at the United Nations Security Council commencing 1 January 1998.
See also
*
List of members of the United Nations Security Council
*
Brazil and the United Nations
Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations and participates in all of its specialized agencies. Brazil is among the twenty top contributors to United Nations peacekeeping operations, and has participated in peacekeeping efforts in the Middle ...
References
UN Document GA/9329press release
UN Document A/52/PV.30Official record of General Assembly meeting, 14 October 1997, 10 a.m.
{{DEFAULTSORT:United Nations Security Council election,1997
1997 elections
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
1997 in international relations
Non-partisan elections