Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For on­ly the sec­ond time in the na­tion’s his­to­ry, Trinidad and To­ba­go will serve as a non-per­ma­nent mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UN­SC).

How­ev­er, while T&T se­cured a com­fort­able vic­to­ry, re­ceiv­ing 59 more votes than the min­i­mum re­quired, ques­tions re­main over whether some Cari­com mem­ber states with­held their sup­port, as nine coun­tries ab­stained from vot­ing.

The coun­try ran un­op­posed for the sin­gle seat al­lo­cat­ed to the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group (GRU­LAC) for the 2027-2028 term. To se­cure a non-per­ma­nent seat, a coun­try must ob­tain a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty of mem­ber states present and vot­ing in a se­cret bal­lot at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

There were 191 coun­tries el­i­gi­ble to vote yes­ter­day, with T&T re­quir­ing at least 122 votes to se­cure elec­tion. The coun­try ul­ti­mate­ly re­ceived 181 votes. How­ev­er, the re­sults al­so record­ed a sin­gle vote for Guyana, de­spite Guyana not be­ing a can­di­date on the bal­lot. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the vote has puz­zled of­fi­cials, as it sug­gests a mem­ber state may have writ­ten in Guyana’s name dur­ing the se­cret bal­lot. Sources in­di­cat­ed there was some be­lief among of­fi­cials that such a vote should have been treat­ed as a spoiled bal­lot rather than count­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

Mean­while, nine mem­ber states ab­stained from vot­ing.

While there is no way of know­ing which coun­tries ab­stained be­cause the bal­lot was se­cret, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and Bar­ba­di­an na­tion­al Pe­ter Wick­ham said he would not be sur­prised if some of them were Cari­com mem­bers.

“I’d be sur­prised if it isn’t. Trinidad and To­ba­go has not been work­ing hard to­wards win­ning friends and in­flu­enc­ing peo­ple with­in Cari­com, and in such an en­vi­ron­ment, Trin­ba­go should con­sid­er it­self lucky that her Cari­com part­ners have not gone a step fur­ther and con­spired against the vote en­tire­ly,” Wick­ham said.

He added, “Con­grat­u­la­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go and best wish­es for a suc­cess­ful term. I would en­cour­age them to use their role in sup­port of good deeds, in the tra­di­tion of oth­er Cari­com mem­bers that have served, such as Guyana, Ja­maica and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.” How­ev­er, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers told Guardian Me­dia that he be­lieves T&T re­ceived the full sup­port of its re­gion­al neigh­bours.

“I be­lieve that we got the sup­port of Cari­com. Cari­com en­dorsed us. There were no new can­di­dates thrown in at the last mo­ment, and we have no rea­son to doubt that Cari­com main­tained its en­dorse­ment and that we got its full sup­port to­day at the UN­SC,” Sobers said.

He said the re­sult re­flect­ed a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion­al bloc.

Yes­ter­day evening, Cari­com is­sued a con­grat­u­la­to­ry state­ment to T&T.

The re­gion­al body said the coun­try’s over­whelm­ing sup­port at the Unit­ed Na­tions re­flect­ed “the con­fi­dence of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, peace and se­cu­ri­ty, and the prin­ci­ples of the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter.”

Cari­com added that the elec­tion was “a proud mo­ment not on­ly for Trinidad and To­ba­go but for the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty as a whole.” The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence that T&T would bring “the unique per­spec­tives of Caribbean Small Is­land and Low-ly­ing Coastal De­vel­op­ing States” to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, par­tic­u­lar­ly on is­sues af­fect­ing vul­ner­a­ble na­tions.

Reaf­firm­ing its sup­port, Cari­com said it stood ready to work along­side Trinidad and To­ba­go to “pro­mote the col­lec­tive in­ter­ests of the re­gion with­in the Unit­ed Na­tions Sys­tem” dur­ing its two-year term. Mean­while, Sobers cred­it­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar with spear­head­ing the coun­try’s cam­paign for the UN­SC seat.

Out­lin­ing T&T’s pri­or­i­ties dur­ing its tenure, Sobers said, “Dur­ing our tenure, we will place par­tic­u­lar em­pha­sis on ad­vanc­ing the women, peace and se­cu­ri­ty agen­da; ad­dress­ing the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of small arms and light weapons; and ex­am­in­ing the im­pli­ca­tions of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence for in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.”

He added: “The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed that we use our tenure to cham­pi­on is­sues, the voic­es and as­pi­ra­tions of all peo­ple and, more im­por­tant­ly, to am­pli­fy the un­heard voic­es to en­sure that jus­tice and equal­i­ty an­chor last­ing se­cu­ri­ty.”

“Our pledge to you is that Trinidad and To­ba­go will be a bal­anced, prin­ci­pled, re­li­able and prag­mat­ic part­ner in the room.”

In a state­ment, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs said T&T re­ceived sup­port from the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil — the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, France, Rus­sia and Chi­na. How­ev­er, it re­mains un­clear how the min­istry was able to de­ter­mine this, giv­en that the vote was con­duct­ed by se­cret bal­lot.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les said T&T’s elec­tion would pro­vide the coun­try with a stronger plat­form on the glob­al stage.

“Re­mem­ber too that coun­tries want cer­tain things to be done by the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, so they will come to you to se­cure your vote. It puts you in a bet­ter place,” Gon­za­les said.

How­ev­er, he ques­tioned whether the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil still wields the in­flu­ence it once did.

“The UN is not re­al­ly play­ing as big a role in world af­fairs as it should or as it prob­a­bly used to. You on­ly have to think about all these con­flicts around the world where the UN has not been able to do any­thing be­cause the Amer­i­cans no longer be­lieve in the UN.

“They’re not fund­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion, so the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil re­al­ly doesn’t func­tion. Look at the con­flicts in Ukraine and else­where. Where is the UN?”

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so wel­comed the elec­toral vic­to­ry but re­mind­ed the pub­lic that T&T’s can­di­da­cy had been years in the mak­ing. He al­so ques­tioned whether the cur­rent UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion would gen­uine­ly re­flect the val­ues and prin­ci­ples tra­di­tion­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

“Will we be car­ry­ing the voice of a war­mon­ger Prime Min­is­ter? Will we be car­ry­ing the voice of a Cab­i­net that does not care about in­ter­na­tion­al law, free­dom of speech, hu­man rights, democ­ra­cy and the oth­er prin­ci­ples that have built Trinidad and To­ba­go?” he asked.

UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Mem­ber­ship from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027

Per­ma­nent Mem­bers

Chi­na

France

Rus­sia

Unit­ed King­dom

Unit­ed States

Con­tin­u­ing Mem­bers (un­til end of 2027)

Bahrain

Colom­bia

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of the Con­go

Latvia

Liberia

New­ly Elect­ed Mem­bers (2027-2028)

Aus­tria (re­plac­ing Greece)

Kyr­gyzs­tan (re­plac­ing Pak­istan)

Por­tu­gal (re­plac­ing Den­mark)

Trinidad and To­ba­go (re­plac­ing Pana­ma)

Zim­bab­we (re­plac­ing So­ma­lia)

Key Func­tions of the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil

In­ves­ti­gates dis­putes and sit­u­a­tions that could threat­en in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Me­di­ates con­flicts and pro­motes peace­ful set­tle­ments through ne­go­ti­a­tions, agree­ments and cease­fires.

Au­tho­ris­es and over­sees UN peace­keep­ing op­er­a­tions.

Im­pos­es sanc­tions against states, or­gan­i­sa­tions or in­di­vid­u­als to de­ter ag­gres­sion and main­tain in­ter­na­tion­al peace.

Au­tho­ris­es the use of force by mem­ber states when nec­es­sary to re­store peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Rec­om­mends can­di­dates for UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and ap­proves the ad­mis­sion of new UN mem­ber states.