The election for the President of the General Assembly in the United Nations is to be held on Monday evening, in which Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid is running against Afghanistan’s Zalmai Rassoul.

Voting is to be held in New York at around 7pm Male’ time, to elect a successor to the current President of the UN General Assembly (PGA), Volkan Bozkir. The winner is to be announced about two hours later.

While the UNGA president vote is held in accordance to the Assembly’s practice of regional rotation among Member States, the President of the 76th session of the General Assembly is being elected from the Group of Asia-Pacific States for the 2021-2022 period. Other regions include African Group, Eastern European Group, Latin American and Caribbean Group, and Western European and Others Group.

After Maldives announced the decision to run for the UNGA seat, Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar said that the Maldivian foreign minister “with his vast diplomatic experience and his leadership qualities is the best equipped to preside over the General Assembly of 193 nations of the world”.

Saudi Arabia has also said that it will back Maldives’ bid, with the country’s Foreign Ministry's State Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir affirming this through a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Shahid’s competitor, Afghanistan’s Rassoul served as minister of transport and civil Aviation in 2002, as chairman of National Security Council from 2002-2010, and as minister of foreign affairs from January 2010 to October 2013. He accompanied former Afghan President Hamid Karzai on all official visits since the establishment of the Interim Administration in 2001.