Ukraine, Egypt, Japan among new members of UN Security Council

The General Assembly elected Egypt, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine and Uruguay as new non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms starting on 1 January 2016.

Of the 192 member states that participated in the vote, Senegal won 187 votes, Uruguay secured 185 votes, Japan 184, Egypt 179 and Ukraine 177. Five countries are represented in it on a permanent basis (Russia, China, the UK, the United States and France) and out of the remaining ten, five are replaced each year.

Many have described the privileges held by the five permanent members as anachronistic and far from representative of the cultural and geopolitical realities of the world. Ukraine was unopposed in its run for the seat and was approved with 177 votes.

Japan’s United Nations Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa said this would be Japan’s 11th term on the Security Council.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told reporters in New York that the election would have a special importance for his country against the backdrop of an ongoing conflict. Each of the Council’s members has one vote.

Putin warned the IMF against bending the rules “for a country destroying the system” and said that Moscow, as a member of the IMF, was contributing to the fund’s aid to Ukraine. Russian Federation has said it would consider Ukraine’s failure to pay by the deadline as a default, with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov saying a “concrete action plan in case of a Ukrainian default” was being prepared.

Motohide Yoshikawa, Japan’s ambassador to the United Nations, said he was “very pleased” with the election results and said his country would work to make the council stronger and more open.

Egypt is returning to the council for the sixth time as Yemen, Libya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories join Syria on the list of Middle East crisis spots. The government of army chief-turned-president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has been criticized by human rights groups for its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, other Islamists and protesters.