The United Nations Security Council will have five new members on January 1, 2027. Austria, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe begin two-year terms that day, after the UN General Assembly elected them on June 3, 2026.
The change matters for anyone following international security and sanctions. The Council is the UN body that can authorize peacekeeping missions and impose binding sanctions, and its elected members shape the agenda through their votes and their turns in the monthly presidency.
How the vote went
According to the UN’s official meeting record, four of the five winners secured the required two-thirds majority in the first round of secret ballots. Zimbabwe, the endorsed candidate for the African seat, received 182 votes. Trinidad and Tobago, the sole candidate for the Latin American and Caribbean seat, received 181.
Three countries competed for the two seats allocated to the Western European and other States group. Portugal received 134 votes and Austria 131. Germany received 104 votes and was not elected.
The Asia-Pacific seat went to further rounds. The vote became a contest between Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines, and after three additional rounds of balloting Kyrgyzstan won, with 142 votes in the final count reported by the UN. It will be Kyrgyzstan’s first time on the Council.
The Council in 2027
The new members replace Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia, whose terms end on December 31, 2026. They will sit alongside the five permanent members, China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the five elected members whose terms run through the end of 2027: Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Latvia and Liberia.
All five permanent members also belong to the G20. None of the 10 elected members in 2027 is a G20 member. Germany, the only G20 economy that stood in this year’s election, missed out.
Several incoming members bring prior experience. The UN record notes that Austria and Portugal have each been elected to the Council three times before, Zimbabwe twice and Trinidad and Tobago once.
What to watch
Elected members take turns holding the Council presidency, which rotates monthly in English alphabetical order and lets the holder set the program of work for that month. The next election, for terms beginning in 2028, will be held by the General Assembly in 2027.
