The UN General Assembly Tuesday elected Colombia to hold one of the two non-permanent seats on the Security Council reserved for Latin America and the Caribbean during 2011-12.
During the first round of the voting, Germany was also selected by ballot to occupy one of the two seats reserved for Western countries, while Portugal later garnered the other one.
Colombia’s candidacy, which was pursued without competition from any other country in the region, won by a vote of 186-0 with five abstentions.
Colombia had already practically assured its election as a Latin American representatives, replacing Mexico, who had concluded its two-year stint as one of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council.
Bogota made its candidacy official four years ago.
With this election, Colombia and Brazil will now be the Latin American representatives on the Security Council.
The General Assembly each year renews five of the 10 non-permanent posts on the Council, which are divided into geographical regions including Western Europe and Other, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Asia and Arab group, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Along with the 10 non-permanent members, the Security Council consists of the US, Russia, France, Britain and China, the five of which each have the right of veto.
South Africa and India were the only countries aspiring to gain the non-permanent seats for their respective regional blocs and during the voting they had the support of all their blocs’ members, being elected to replace Uganda and Japan, respectively.