Former Nicaraguan foreign minister set to be next General Assembly President

The former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann is likely to become the next President of the General Assembly after the Latin American and Caribbean countries at the United Nations agreed to endorse his candidature, an Assembly spokesperson said today.

Ambassador Aura Mahuampi Rodriguez de Ortiz of Venezuela, who serves as the current chair of the Latin American and Caribbean Group of countries (GRULAC) at the UN, sent a letter last week to the current President, Srgjan Kerim, informing him of the group’s decision, the spokesperson told reporters in New York.

Under the Assembly principle of regional rotation, the next GA President – who is scheduled to start serving on 16 September this year – should come from one of the countries in GRULAC.

In recent years the election of a General Assembly President has been by acclamation, with the last case of a formal vote occurring at the 46th session (1991-92), when there were three declared candidates. Assembly rules and procedures state that a president must be elected at least three months before the new session, which in the case means before 16 June.

Mr. D’Escoto Brockmann, 75, served as foreign minister of Nicaragua from July 1979 to April 1990 and in February last year he was appointed special senior adviser, with the rank of minister, for foreign policies and boundary issues to Nicaragua’s current President Daniel Ortega Saavedra.