Portugal and Austria defeated Germany for seats on the powerful and closely divided UN Security Council on Wednesday in a closely contested race after an intense campaign.
The ten rotating seats on the 15-member Security Council are allocated to different regions of the world.
The Assembly elects five countries by secret ballot each year for a two-year term along with the five permanent members of the Council who have veto power – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.
In the other contested race, after four rounds of voting in the 193-member General Assembly, Kyrgyzstan defeated the Philippines by 143 votes to 49, and will join the Council for the first time.
Zimbabwe, the African candidate, and Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean candidate, had no opponents and were elected with more than 180 votes.
In the race for the two seats of the group of mainly Western countries, Portugal received 134 votes and Austria 131 votes, while Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe that served six previous terms in the Council, received 104 votes.
