The United Nations General Assembly has elected Sierra Leone and Algeria has non-permanent members of the Security Council.

This follows elections that were held on 6th June 2023.

Sierra Leone and Algeria were elected alongside, Guyana, Republic of Korea and Slovenia for a two-year period starting in January 2024.

Ten non-permanent members of the Security Council are elected by the General Assembly which comprises all 193 UN Member States, and in line with geographical distribution by region.

Voting is conducted by secret ballot and candidates must receive a two-thirds majority, or 128 votes, even if they run uncontested.

Out of 193 Member States, 192 voted to fill three seats allocated to the Africa and Asia-Pacific Groups, and one each for Eastern Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean in the election.

In Group A for African and Asia-Pacific States elections, Sierra Leone got 188 votes, Algeria 184 while the Republic of Korea got 180.

In Group B, the Eastern Europe region was contested by two countries – Slovenia and Belarus. Slovenia won the slot after garnering 153 votes against Belarus’s 38 votes.

Guyana, representing Latin American and Caribbean States in Group C got 191.

Apart from the Eastern Europe region where two countries contested, the rest were unopposed. Belarus had been a candidate unopposed since 2007 for the 2024/25 Eastern European seat.

However, Slovenia entered the race in December 2021 after a brutal crackdown by the authorities in Belarus on protests following a 2020 presidential election.

The five newly elected countries will join Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland as non-permanent members of the Council.

They will take up seats currently occupied by Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates when their two-year terms end on 31st December 2023.