The UN General Assembly on Monday elected Belgium, Indonesia, Italy and South Africa to serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms but failed to name a fifth.

Voting continues today for the fifth non-permanent seat, which is to be awarded to a member of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States and is still in contention after ten rounds of voting.

During the daylong elections, neither Guatemala nor Venezuela, which are candidates from their regional group, obtained the needed two-thirds majority. In the tenth round of voting where 125 votes were needed to win, Guatemala received 110 votes and Venezuela 77 with four abstentions.

In fact, after the first three rounds of election, the assembly has to carry out unrestricted elections in accordance with the UN Charter, which means voting is thrown open to all members in the region.

Unrestricted balloting will continue until a state from the region achieves the required majority. The winner will replace Argentina, whose term expires on December 31 this year.

Belgium, Italy, South Africa and Indonesia will serve their two-year terms starting from January 1, 2007.

Meanwhile, the US is lobbying against Venezuela's bid, sparking reactions from Francisco Javier Arias Cardenas, Venezuela's ambassador to the UN, who has accused the US of trying to turn the vote into a contest between his government and Washington. He stressed that votes cast for Venezuela would be "votes of conscience" in favor of the developing world.

"We are not competing with a brother country. We are competing with the biggest power on the planet," he told reporters, adding that Venezuela would not withdraw from the race.

The members were elected according to an agreed geographic allocation, which awards two seats to African and Asian countries, two to Western European and Other States, and one to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Council elections are held by secret ballot, and a winning candidate requires a two-thirds majority of ballots from present voting members. Formal balloting takes place even in those regions where there is only one candidate per available seat.

Belgium and Italy were the only contenders in the Western European and Other States category, and they received 180 and 186 votes respectively. South Africa, the only candidate in the African group, was elected after picking up 186 votes. In Asia, where there were two contenders, Indonesia received 158 votes and Nepal received 28.

The council's five other non-permanent members, whose terms end on December 31, 2007, are Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia. The five permanent members are China, France, Russia, Britain and the US.

The longest election in UN history for the membership of the Security Council occurred in 1979. A tense race between Cuba and Colombia began on October 26, 1979 and ended on January 7, 1980. After two months and 155 rounds, Mexico, a third candidate, was elected when both Colombia and Cuba decided to withdraw.

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2006)