Somalia was elected on Thursday to serve a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member, starting January 1. This marks the second time Somalia has held a seat on the council.
In addition to Somalia, the General Assembly elected Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, and Panama to the Security Council in a secret ballot. The 193-member world body selected these five countries without any surprises, as the regional groups had agreed on their candidates beforehand.
The 15-member Security Council includes ten non-permanent seats, distributed among regional groups. This year, Somalia was elected for the African seat, Pakistan for the Asia-Pacific seat, Panama for the Latin America and Caribbean seat, and Denmark and Greece for two Western seats.
These newly elected members will replace Mozambique, Japan, Ecuador, Malta, and Switzerland, whose terms end on December 31. They will join the council’s five permanent members with veto power: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. Additionally, they will serve alongside the five countries elected last year: Algeria, Guyana, South Korea, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia.
The Security Council is tasked with maintaining international peace and security. However, because of Russia’s veto power it has been unable to take action on Ukraine — and because of close U.S. ties to Israel it has not called for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza.
All five countries elected on Thursday have previously served on the Security Council. Pakistan has served seven times, Panama five times, Denmark four times, Greece twice, and Somalia once.
While there is broad agreement on the need to reform the Security Council to better reflect the world in the 21st century, disagreements among the 193 member states on how to achieve this have stalled significant reform for four decades.
Melissa Enoch
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