For
UNSC, Rwanda
Wins With 148,
Australia 140,
EU and Asian
2d Round
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 18 --
Rwanda,
Australia and
Argentina won
UN
Security
Council seats
in the first
round of
voting on
Thursday
morning in the
UN General
Assembly.
Australia's
competitors
Luxembourg and
Finland face
off in a
second round,
as do South
Korea
and Cambodia
for a single
Asian seat.
Despite
a
candidate-less
campaign
against
Rwanda,
complete with
the leak of a
UN Sanctions
report two
days before
the vote
accusing it of
support
of the M23
mutineers in
the Democratic
Republic of
the Congo,
Rwanda
got 148 votes.
Tellingly, DRC
got a vote --
its own? --
and Tanzania
got three
votes. The
rest was
abstentions,
some from SADC
as Inner
City Press
reported.
Exiting
the
first round
vote count
announcement,
an Asian Group
Permanent
Representative
told Inner
City Press
that the
biggest
surprise was
"South Korea's
low vote
count, despite
all that
money." He
indicated his
country would
switch to
Cambodia in
the second
round.
But would it
be enough?
Bhutan got 20
votes -- some
dubbed it the
Happiness
vote.
Argentina
won
easily with
182 votes;
Cuba and
Barbados each
drew a vote.
Election
required
129 votes,
which
Australia
surpassed with
140.
Luxembourg
just missed
with 128;
Finland came
in with 108.
The latter two
face
off in the
second round.
Earlier this
week,
Finland's
Permanent
Representative
told Inner
City Press his
country had
165
"commitments."
Oh the
betrayal! So
it goes at the
UN. Watch this
site.
, 
