India Adds Economic Power to Security Council Bloc With Brazil, Envoy Says

India and South Africa were elected today to the United Nations Security Council, and will join Brazil in a bloc of emerging economic powers that may resist U.S. pressure to adopt tighter sanctions on Iran.

Colombia and Germany also were elected to two-year terms on the council after receiving the required two-thirds majority of the 192 member nations of the UN General Assembly. Portugal is set to prevail over Canada in three ballots.

Brazil, India and South Africa formed a coalition in 2003 to act as a voice for developing nations. Brazil ranked eighth and India 11th in gross domestic product last year, and South Africa had Africa’s largest economy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“These countries will of necessity work together,” South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in a statement today that referred to its coalition with India and Brazil.

The five new members will take seats on Jan. 1 that are now held by Austria, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Uganda. Brazil was elected last year, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria.

The expanding economies of India, Brazil and South Africa will give them political clout on the UN’s principal policy- making body, according to Jeff Laurenti, a UN analyst at the New York-based Century Foundation research group.

‘Command Respect’

“On various sanctions proposals, when they come up, these are nations that can command respect because they have the economic power to constrain and constrict a miscreant country,” Laurenti said in an interview. “Twenty years ago, who would have cared what Brazil or India said? Now you don’t want to be riding roughshod over them.”

South Africa, which was on the Security Council in 2007- 2008, joined China and Russia at the time in voting against a U.S.-backed resolution that would have pressed Myanmar’s military government to free political prisoners and move toward democracy.

Brazil voted in June against sanctions intended to block Iran’s possible pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, a measure that passed with Chinese and Russian support. China, Russia, France, the U.K. and the U.S. hold permanent seats on the 15-nation council and can veto measures.

India, last elected to the Security Council in 1990, signaled possible opposition to sanctions on Iran before the June vote. India’s government released a statement saying it “conveyed to the U.S. that sanctions on Iran have proved to be counterproductive and that all differences with Iran should be resolved peacefully through dialogue and negotiations.”

Since the Security Council passed tougher sanctions on Iran, the U.S. has stepped up pressure on Iran’s banks and the country’s national security leadership, and on companies that invest in Iran’s energy industry.

India is one of Iran’s largest crude oil customers. It is also pursuing the import of Iranian natural gas through a pipeline that transits Pakistan, Oil Minister Murli Deora said in a written reply to a question in parliament in August.

The Security Council’s elected members, lacking a veto, can block needed consensus on bringing issues before the body and obstruct proposed statements condemning governments including Sudan, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net

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