The United Nations General Assembly has elected five new countries to serve on the UN Security Council for two years starting on January 1, 2026.
The Security Council is the only part of the UN that can make decisions all countries must follow, such as punishing a country with sanctions or allowing to take military action.
The council has 15 members in total. Five of them including Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are permanent members and have special power to block any decision using their veto.
Meanwhile, the other 10 members are elected for two-year terms and do not have veto power.
Each year, five new countries are elected to the UN Security Council to serve as part of the ten non-permanent members.
As per Reuters, this time, Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Latvia and Liberia have been elected.
And these five will take over the seats currently held by Algeria, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Guyana and Slovenia.
UN backs five countries for Security Council with strong votes:
All the members must get support from more than two-third of the General Assembly members to officially win a seat.
In the voting process for the UN Security Council, each of five elected countries received strong support from the UN General Assembly.
Bahrain got the highest number of votes with 186, followed by the DRC with 183, Liberia with 181, Colombia with 180 and Latvia with 178.
