Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, defeating the other candidate for the post, Lithuanian Ambassador to the UN Dalius Cekuolis.
Of the 193 UN member states, 99 voted in favour of Jeremic and 85 supported Cekuolis. Croatia was among the countries that backed Cekuolis.
The Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Vesna Pusic, said in March that Croatia had promised to support Lithuania in its bid for the Chair of the UN General Assembly and that it would keep its promise. She said that Jeremic was late in announcing his candidacy, while Lithuania had done so in 2004 and had started lobbying the UN members.
Bosnia and Herzegovina abstained from voting because it was unable to agree on which candidate to support, the country's Presidency decided on Friday. Presidency members Bakir Izetbegovic and Zeljko Komsic had earlier expressed reservations about Jeremic, saying that he did not deserve to become President of the UN General Assembly because of his conflicting positions on Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were regarded as interference in its internal affairs. The Serb member of the Presidency, Nebojsa Radmanovic, had strongly supported Jeremic.
Jeremic will chair the UN General Assembly from September 2012 to September 2013.
