UN consulting on election mechanism for SC seat assured for India

United Nations: UN General Assembly President Tijjani Muhamad-Bande is holding consultations on two possible ways of holding the elections for the non-permanent Security Council seats, one of which is assured for India, if the COVID-19 lockdown continues, according to his Spokesperson Reem Abaza.

Muhamad-Bande has circulated the proposals from UN Secretariat for holding the elections due next month and held a virtual meeting on Thursday with leaders of the UN regional groups and officials.

Abaza said on Friday that Movses Abelian, the Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management, made a presentation on the possible options for elections.

She said that the options were being examined in case the shutdown of the UN headquarters because of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging New York continues next month and in-person meetings remain suspended.

A decision on June meetings and they are to be held was expected soon, she said.

The non-permanent seats are allocated on a regional basis and India has the unanimous support from the countries in the Asia Pacific region for the group's seat that will fall vacant when Indonesia completes its two-year term at the end of this year.

China and Pakistan went along with the consensus because of the overwhelming support for India.

This ensures India's election but the formality of a voting in which all countries vote has to be gone through.

One of the proposals calls for in-person voting with representative coming in batches during prearranged time slots in order to maintain social distancing and voting with paper ballots under the supervision of Secretariat staff.

Another is through online voting, which the Secretariat is looking into.

Under this system, designated members of delegations will get a password by email or text message and will be able to vote through the system known as e-deleGATE portal.