As of January 1, the five current temporary members of the UN Security Council — Chad, Chile, Jordan, Lithuania and Nigeria — will return to their humble status as regular members, and will be replaced by Egypt, Ukraine, Japan, Senegal and Uruguay. The five new temporary members join the other five temporary council members: Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela.
All he five new countries ran unopposed for the temporary seats, as part of an arrangement with their respective regional groups, but they still had to elicit two-thirds of the assembly members votes. This meant that Ukraine had to find enough members who sided with her in her struggle against Russia—a permanent member, and Egypt had to overcome the resentment many in the world are feeling about President Al-Sisi’s coup that unseated the elected president Mursi, as well as Egypt’s tough love policy regarding the Gaza Strip.
Russia reportedly attempted to foil its neighbor’s attempt to join it behind the UNSC podium, campaigning vigorously against the appointment.
When the voting started, the delegates seated in the General Assembly were handed gift bags from the candidates: chocolates from Ukraine, tea from Japan, pens from Senegal and a soccer ball from Uruguay. It has not been publicized what Egypt, which is returning to the council for the sixth time, gave away.
The assembled ambassadors applauded and cheered after the results showed Senegal to be the most popular contender, with 187 out of a possible 193, followed by Uruguay with 185. Japan was third with 184 votes, Egypt collected 179 votes and Ukraine came in last with 177 votes.
It is universally accepted that Israel will never become a permanent UNSC member, because its regional caucus is made up largely of countries that plan to push it into the sea.