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5 (of 10) non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council | ||||
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The 1976 United Nations Security Council election was held on 21 October 1976 during the Thirty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly, held at United Nations HeadquartersinNew York City. The General Assembly elected Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Mauritius, and Venezuela, as the five new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for two-year mandates commencing on 1 January 1977. Both Mauritius and West Germany were elected members of the council for the first time.
The Security Council has 15 seats, filled by five permanent members and ten non-permanent members. Each year, half of the non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms.[1][2] A sitting member may not immediately run for re-election.[3]
In accordance with the rules whereby the ten non-permanent UNSC seats rotate among the various regional blocs into which UN member states traditionally divide themselves for voting and representation purposes,[4] the five available seats are allocated as follows:
To be elected, a candidate must receive a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. If the vote is inconclusive after the first round, three rounds of restricted voting shall take place, followed by three rounds of unrestricted voting, and so on, until a result has been obtained. In restricted voting, only official candidates may be voted on, while in unrestricted voting, any member of the given regional group, with the exception of current Council members, may be voted on.
The election was managed by then-President of the United Nations General Assembly Hamilton Shirley AmerasingheofSri Lanka. The United Nations had 146 member states at this time (for a timeline of UN membership, see Enlargement of the United Nations). Delegates were to write the names of the five member states they wished elected on the ballot papers. Voting was conducted on a single ballot. Ballots containing more states from a certain region than seats allocated to that region were invalidated.
| Member | Round 1[6] |
|---|---|
 Venezuela |
136 |
 Mauritius |
134 |
 India |
132 |
 Canada |
126 |
 West Germany |
119 |
 Finland |
2 |
 Austria |
1 |
 Belgium |
1 |
 Bhutan |
1 |
 Burundi |
1 |
 Chile |
1 |
 Cuba |
1 |
 Denmark |
1 |
 Greece |
1 |
 Iceland |
1 |
 Kenya |
1 |
 Luxembourg |
1 |
 Madagascar |
1 |
 Philippines |
1 |
 Portugal |
1 |
 Spain |
1 |
 Turkey |
1 |
 Yugoslavia |
1 |
| invalid ballots | 0 |
| abstentions | 0 |
| required majority | 92 |
| ballot papers | 138 |
