President of the United Nations General Assembly

The president of the United Nations General Assembly is a position voted by representatives in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on a yearly basis. The president is the chair and presiding officer of the General Assembly.

Election


The session of the assembly is scheduled for every year starting in September—any special, or emergency special, assemblies over the next year will be headed by the president of the UNGA.

The presidency rotates annually between the five geographic groups: African, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, and Western European and other States.

Because of their powerful stature globally, some of the largest, most powerful countries have never held the presidency, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Japan.

The only modern countries that had a national elected as president of UNGA twice are Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Hungary and Nigeria; all the other member states had been represented only once by their nationals holding this office. This does not include special and emergency special sessions of UNGA. FR ["West"] Germany and ["East"] German DR held the presidency once each during the Cold War; the reunited Germany has not done so.

In addition to the president, a slate of 21 vice-presidents are elected for each General Assembly session. The vice-presidents have the same powers and duties as the president, and the president may designate one of them to cover his absence from any meeting or part thereof.

Abbreviations

 * Pre-1966
 * COS: Commonwealth Seat
 * EAS: Eastern European and Asian Seat
 * LAS: Latin American Seat
 * MES: Middle Eastern Seat
 * WES: Western European Seat


 * Since 1966
 * Africa: African Group
 * Asia-Pacific: Asian Group, since 2011 the Asia-Pacific Group
 * EEG: Eastern European Group
 * GRULAC: Latin American and Caribbean Group
 * WEOG: Western European and Others Group