Maldives to replace Turkey as UN President after India's Vote

New York:

The election of Maldives’ Foreign Minister, Abdulla Shahid, as the 76th President of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), couldn't have come at a better time for the island state. Shahid commences his year-long term in September, and his elevation, it's far hoped, can alternate the archipelago state's status withinside the global community, mainly as the worldwide frame is in any other case taken into consideration to be a member for wealthy and effective countries, of which Maldives isn't always one. 

The 193-member General Assembly voted on Monday to go with the president, who will preside over the 76th consultation of the UN frame starting in September. In the fray, alongside Mr. Shahid turned into Dr. Zalmay Rasool, former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, who were given forty-eight votes.

Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives defeated Afghanistan’s former overseas minister Zalmai Rassoul in an election Monday for the following president of the United Nations General Assembly. Volkan Bozkir, the cutting-edge meeting president, introduced the 143-forty eight end result of the name of the game ballot vote in choose of Shahid, with of its 193 member countries now no longer voting. Diplomats from member countries, all wearing masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been referred to as to the front of the meeting chamber separately to deposit their ballot in a big timber box.

Bozkir, a Turkish diplomat and politician, stated Shahid brings to the job “widespread enjoy in multilateral diplomacy,” serving his Indian Ocean island state two times as overseas minister and for 10 years earlier than that as leader of a group of workers to the president.

As the pandemic keeps to devastate groups around the arena and weather alternate threaten people’s lives and livelihoods, Bozkir stated Shahid has been “a sturdy voice in calling interest to the effect on the small island growing states,” and expressed self-assurance he's going to remain an applicable voice as the arena recovers from the pandemic.

In his attractiveness speech after the effects have been declared, Shahid stated that dealing with the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic could be his first precedence because the UNGA chair. “No one is safe till everybody is safe,” he declared, underlining the fact of the rich-terrible divide in phrases of countries and individuals. In context, he pressured the significance of what he termed as ‘vaccine equity’. Building on current tasks and approaches, “I will be looking to address the health of our people and our economies,” Shahid stated.

India’s support to Shahid’s candidacy

India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar changed into among the primary global character to congratulate his counterpart Shahid and the neighboring Maldives. “Heartiest felicitations to Foreign Minister of Maldives @abdulla_shahid on his election as President for 76th UN General Assembly,” wrote Jaishankar in a Twitter post. “This is an affidavit as tons to his personal stature as to the status of Maldives. We stay up for running with him to bolster multilateralism and its tons-wished reforms,” he stated further.

As can be recalled, India changed into additionally the primary state to recommend Shahid’s candidacy as early as November remaining year. In Maldives on a reputable visit, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla publicly reiterated the “dedication made with the aid of using our External Affairs Minister in advance in the course of the Virtual Meeting

with Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid that India will guide his candidature”. Secretary Shringla additionally stated that with his “good-sized diplomatic revel in and management qualities, Foreign Minister Shahid has the high-quality credentials to preside over the General Assembly in those tumultuous times”.