Press Releases

The General Assembly elected today, Ms María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador as President of its 73rd session. The General Assembly also elected the Permanent Representative of Cyprus, Ambassador Kornelios Korneliou to the post of Vice President of the Assembly.

Ms Espinosa Garcés is the fourth woman to helm the 193-member organ in its more than seven-decades-long history. Ms Espinosa, a former Minister for National Defence, received 128 votes, surpassing the required simple majority of 96. The only other candidate, Ms Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake (Honduras), received 62 votes.

UN Secretary General, Mr António Guterres, welcoming Ms Espinosaʼs election, expressed the hope that todayʼs choice would pave the way for accelerated progress towards gender equality, within and beyond the United Nations.

Ms Espinosa, taking the podium after the election, said that with todayʼs vote — an act that strengthened multilateralism — “all States win”, noting that for the first time in history, the Presidentʼs election had followed an interactive dialogue with the candidates.  “Today, I become the fourth woman to be elected to this position in 73 years of existence of the United Nations,” she said, adding that she was also the first woman from the Latin America and Caribbean region to preside over the Assembly.

The Assembly also elected, by acclamation, the following 16 Vice Presidents of its plenary bureau: Cyprus, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Guyana, Iraq, Japan, Namibia, Panama, Qatar, San Marino, Spain, Sudan and Ukraine. The above elected Vice Presidents are joined by another five ex officio Vice Presidents, the Permanent  Representatives of the P5 of the Security Council — China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and the United States.

As a result, the Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations, Ambassador Kornelios Korneliou, will serve as Vice President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly, which will begin its work in September.

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(MG/ΙΙ)