The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to elect Germany, Belgium, South Africa, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic for a two-year term in the Security Council starting on Jan. 1, 2019.
The five members giving up their seat at the end of this year are Sweden, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Bolivia and Ethiopia.
Germany received 184 votes, Belgium had 181, South Africa got 183, and the Dominican Republic had 184 after one round of voting.
Indonesia drew more votes than the Maldives in the contested election for one Asia-Pacific seat by 144 to 46, while the other four candidates ran unopposed.
Uncontested candidates still need to win more than two-thirds of the overall General Assembly vote to be elected. There were 190 ballots in Friday's vote.
The Security Council has five permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and 10 members elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. Five countries are elected every year.
Belgium and Germany, which have each served on the council five times previously, were elected from the Western European and Others group of nations known as WEOG. Israel, which was facing an uphill struggle in a three-way race for two WEOG seats, dropped out last month.
