President of the United Nations General Assembly

Not to be confused with Secretary-General of the United Nations.

President of the United Nations General Assembly
Emblem of the United Nations
Flag of the United Nations
Incumbent Khalilur Rahman since 8 September 2026
United Nations General Assembly
Style	His Excellency
Status	Presiding officer
Member of	General Assembly General Committee (chair)
Residence	New York City (International Territory)
Seat	United Nations Headquarters
Appointer	Member states of General Assembly
Term length	One year
Constituting instrument	Charter of the United Nations, Article 21 Rules of procedure, rules 30–37
Inaugural holder	Paul-Henri Spaak
Formation	1946
Website	un.org/en/ga/

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.

The office is provided for in Article 21 of the Charter of the United Nations, which states that the assembly elects a president for each session, and its functions are set out in rules 30 to 37 of the assembly's rules of procedure. The presidency rotates each year among the five regional groups, and the holder serves a single one-year term that runs from the opening of one regular session in September to the opening of the next.

The president presides over plenary meetings, rules on points of order, chairs the General Committee and represents the assembly in dealings with the other principal organs, but has no vote and no power to bind member states. Much of the influence attached to the post is therefore informal, resting on the holder's ability to convene debates, appoint co-facilitators for negotiations and set thematic priorities for the session. The president is not a United Nations staff member and receives no salary from the organisation; the costs of the office are met from the regular budget and from a voluntary trust fund, and the holder's own government usually continues to pay them.

History

The office dates from the first session of the General Assembly, which opened in London in January 1946 and elected the Belgian statesman Paul-Henri Spaak as its first president. In the assembly's early decades the session was a comparatively short affair concentrated in the autumn months, and the presidency was largely understood as a chairmanship of those meetings.

As the assembly's calendar lengthened into a year-round operation of resumed plenary meetings, high-level thematic debates and informal consultations, the presidency grew into a more substantial job with a standing office and a permanent staff. The role expanded further after 2015, when member states gave the president a defined part in the selection of the secretary-general, and after 2016, when the corruption case against a former president prompted the first written ethical rules for the post.

Election

A map of the world showing the home countries of presidents of the United Nations General Assembly up until the 76th session of the General Assembly in 2021–22, with historical member states in inset.

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.

Under rule 30 of the rules of procedure, as amended in 2002, the assembly elects its president and 21 vice-presidents at least three months before the session over which they are to preside opens, and those elected take up their functions only when that session begins. In practice the election is held in early June for a session opening in September. If a president has not been chosen by the time a session opens, rule 31 provides that the previous president, or the head of the delegation that supplied them, presides until an election is held.

Rotation and contested elections

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

The group whose turn it is normally settles on a single candidate in advance, and the assembly then elects that person without a ballot. When a group cannot agree, the whole membership votes by secret ballot, an outcome that has been rare. It happened in 1991, when the Asian group put forward three names; not again until June 2012, when Vuk Jeremić of Serbia defeated Dalius Čekuolis of Lithuania by 99 votes to 85; in 2016, when Peter Thomson of Fiji beat Andreas Mavroyiannis of Cyprus 94 to 90; and in 2026, when Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh defeated Andreas Kakouris of Cyprus 99 to 91.

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.

A few countries had a national elected as president of UNGA twice: Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. Five women have held the office: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit in 1953, Angie Brooks in 1969, Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa in 2006, María Fernanda Espinosa in 2018 and Annalena Baerbock in 2025.

Transparency of the selection process

The way candidates are chosen has itself been a subject of reform. In resolution 71/323 of 2017 the assembly decided that candidates for the presidency should publish vision statements and take part in informal interactive dialogues with member states before the vote, a step intended to make the process more transparent and inclusive; civil society organisations and members of the public may submit questions for those sessions. The same resolution invited member states to consider nominating women, with a view to improving gender balance across senior United Nations posts. Dialogues have been convened before each subsequent election, including those held on 13 May 2026 for the eighty-first session.

Role and powers

Presiding over the assembly

Rules 35 and 36 give the president the general powers of a presiding officer: declaring meetings open and closed, directing debate, ensuring that the rules are observed, according the right to speak, putting questions to a vote and announcing decisions, as well as ruling on points of order and maintaining order in the hall. Under rule 37 the president does not vote, and instead designates another member of their own delegation to cast the vote for their country. If the president must be absent, one of the vice-presidents takes the chair with the same powers; if the president becomes unable to serve, a replacement is elected for the remainder of the term.

The president also chairs the General Committee, which is made up of the president, the 21 vice-presidents and the chairs of the six Main Committees, and which assists in the general conduct of the assembly's work, including recommendations on the agenda. By rule 62 the president invites delegates to observe a minute of silent prayer or meditation immediately after the opening and before the closing of each session.

Convening and representation

Beyond the chair, the president convenes high-level thematic debates on current issues during the resumed part of the session, appoints co-facilitators to steer intergovernmental negotiations, and represents the assembly in its dealings with the Secretariat and the other principal organs. Successive revitalisation resolutions have also established a practice of monthly coordination meetings between the president of the assembly and the president of the Security Council. When an emergency special session or a special session is convened during the year, the sitting president presides over it as well.

Selection of the secretary-general

Resolution 69/321 of September 2015 gave the presidency a formal part in choosing the secretary-general. It called on the presidents of the assembly and of the Security Council to open the process with a joint letter soliciting candidates, and provided for informal dialogues in which nominees present themselves to the full membership and answer questions from member states. The first such joint letter was issued in December 2015 and has been described as the first public job announcement for the post; twelve candidates took part in the dialogues that followed, which were webcast. Where a selection process spans two sessions, the outgoing president hands it on to their successor, as Annalena Baerbock did in a letter to member states of 4 September 2026 before Khalilur Rahman took over the process for the eighty-first session.

Office of the President

The president is supported by the Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA), headed by a chef de cabinet. The office is financed from the United Nations regular budget together with a voluntary trust fund, and is staffed partly by officials seconded from permanent missions and from parts of the United Nations system, an arrangement member states have repeatedly asked to be put on a more systematic footing.

Because the office is rebuilt around a new president every year, continuity has been a recurring difficulty. A 2025 report on revitalisation recorded that the office had retained roughly half its team from the previous session to preserve institutional memory, that all five regional groups were represented on the staff and that women made up more than half of it, while also noting that unpredictable funding at the start of each session and high staff turnover continued to hamper the office's work.

Ethics and accountability

Scrutiny of the presidency increased sharply in October 2015, when John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, who had presided over the sixty-eighth session in 2013–14, was charged by United States prosecutors with taking more than a million dollars in bribes from Chinese businessmen, including payments he solicited on the stated basis that they would fund his office. Ashe denied wrongdoing and died in 2016 before he could be tried.

Contemporary reporting pointed out how little oversight the post carried: presidents could hold other jobs without disclosing them, had wide discretion over an office budget then worth roughly US$330,000 a year, could accept additional money from member states without telling anyone, and went through no formal vetting. A task force set up by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported in 2016 that the office operated with weak financial oversight and no code of ethics, and made eighteen recommendations, among them a code of conduct for presidents, disclosure of all funds received by the office and screening of private donors.

Member states responded in resolution 70/305 of 2016, which introduced an oath of office for incoming presidents and annexed a Code of Ethics for the President of the General Assembly. The code requires the president to observe the highest standards of ethical conduct from the date of election, to act impartially and in good faith, and to avoid using the office or its resources for private gain, showing unwarranted preference to any state or person, or acting in ways that would damage confidence in the organisation. Recent presidents have undertaken to finance their official activities solely through the regular budget and the OPGA trust fund and have participated in the United Nations financial disclosure programme; Miroslav Lajčák, president of the seventy-second session, was the first to publish a summary of his personal financial disclosure on taking up and leaving the post.

Vice-presidents

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 or her absence from any meeting or part thereof. The seats are distributed under a pattern set by resolution 33/138 of 1978: six for African states, four for Asian states, one for Eastern European states, three for Latin American and Caribbean states, two for Western European and other states, and one each for the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Symbols and traditions

The president presides with a distinctive gavel presented to the United Nations by Iceland in 1952, carved by the sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson and offered on the basis that the country's parliament, the Althing, is among the oldest in the world. It is used to open and close meetings, mark the adoption of the agenda and of resolutions, and call the hall to order. The original broke in October 1960 in the hands of Frederick Boland as he tried to restore order during the session at which Nikita Khrushchev disrupted proceedings; a replica was supplied, and the gavel in use today was carved from pear wood in 2005 by the Icelandic sculptor Sigríður Kristjánsdóttir. At the close of each session the outgoing president hands the gavel to their successor in a short ceremony.

List of presidents

Year elected	Image	Name of president (Birth–Death)	UN member state	Region	Sessions
1946		Paul-Henri Spaak (1889–1972)	Belgium	WES	First
1947		Oswaldo Aranha (1894–1960)	Brazil	LAS	First special Second
1948		José Arce (1881–1968)	Argentina	LAS	Second special
1948		Herbert Vere Evatt (1894–1965)	Australia	COS	Third
1949		Carlos P. Romulo (1898–1985)	Philippines	EAS	Fourth, First Asian president
1950		Nasrollah Entezam (1900–1980)	Iran	EAS	Fifth
1951		Luis Padilla Nervo (1894–1985)	Mexico	LAS	Sixth
1952		Lester B. Pearson (1897–1972)	Canada	COS	Seventh
1953		Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900–1990)	India	COS	Eighth, First woman president
1954		Eelco van Kleffens (1894–1983)	Netherlands	WES	Ninth
1955		José Maza Fernández (1889–1964)	Chile	LAS	Tenth
1956		Rudecindo Ortega Mason (1896–1962)	Chile	LAS	First emergency special Second emergency special
1956		Wan Waithayakon (1891–1976)	Thailand	EAS	Eleventh
1957		Leslie Munro (1901–1974)	New Zealand	COS	Twelfth Third emergency special
1958		Charles Malik (1906–1987)	Lebanon	MES	Thirteenth
1959		Víctor Andrés Belaúnde (1893–1966)	Peru	LAS	Fourteenth Fourth emergency special
1960		Frederick Boland (1904–1985)	Ireland	WES	Fifteenth Third special
1961		Mongi Slim (1908–1969)	Tunisia	MES	Sixteenth, First African president
1962		Muhammad Zafarullah Khan (1893–1985)	Pakistan	COS	Seventeenth Fourth special
1963		Carlos Sosa Rodríguez (1912–1997)	Venezuela	LAS	Eighteenth
1964		Alex Quaison-Sackey (1924–1992)	Ghana	COS	Nineteenth
1965		Amintore Fanfani (1908–1999)	Italy	WES	Twentieth
1966		Abdul Rahman Pazhwak (1919–1995)	Afghanistan	Asia	Twenty-first Fifth special Fifth emergency special
1967		Corneliu Mănescu (1916–2000)	Romania	EEG	Twenty-second
1968		Emilio Arenales Catalán (1922–1969)	Guatemala	GRULAC	Twenty-third
1969		Angie Brooks (1928–2007)	Liberia	Africa	Twenty-fourth
1970		Edvard Hambro (1911–1977)	Norway	WEOG	Twenty-fifth
1971		Adam Malik (1917–1984)	Indonesia	Asia	Twenty-sixth
1972		Stanisław Trepczyński (1924–2002)	Poland	EEG	Twenty-seventh
1973		Leopoldo Benites (1905–1996)	Ecuador	GRULAC	Twenty-eighth Sixth special
1974		Abdelaziz Bouteflika (1937–2021)	Algeria	Africa	Twenty-ninth Seventh special
1975		Gaston Thorn (1928–2007)	Luxembourg	WEOG	Thirtieth
1976		Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe (1913–1980)	Sri Lanka	Asia	Thirty-first
1977		Lazar Mojsov (1920–2011)	Yugoslavia	EEG	Thirty-second Eighth special Ninth special Tenth special
1978		Indalecio Liévano (1917–1982)	Colombia	GRULAC	Thirty-third
1979		Salim Ahmed Salim (born 1942)	United Republic of Tanzania	Africa	Thirty-fourth Sixth emergency special Seventh emergency special Eleventh special
1980		Rüdiger von Wechmar (1923–2007)	Federal Republic of Germany	WEOG	Thirty-fifth Eighth emergency special
1981		Ismat T. Kittani (1929–2001)	Iraq	Asia	Thirty-sixth Seventh emergency special—Continuation Ninth emergency special Twelfth special
1982		Imre Hollai (1925–2017)	Hungary	EEG	Thirty-seventh
1983		Jorge Illueca (1918–2012)	Panama	GRULAC	Thirty-eighth
1984		Paul J. F. Lusaka (1935–1996)	Zambia	Africa	Thirty-ninth
1985		Jaime de Piniés (1917–2003)	Spain	WEOG	Fortieth Thirteenth special
1986		Humayun Rashid Choudhury (1928–2001)	Bangladesh	Asia	Forty-first Fourteenth special
1987		Peter Florin (1921–2014)	German Democratic Republic	EEG	Forty-second Fifteenth special
1988		Dante Caputo (1943–2018)	Argentina	GRULAC	Forty-third
1989		Joseph Nanven Garba (1943–2002)	Nigeria	Africa	Forty-fourth Sixteenth special Seventeenth special Eighteenth special
1990		Guido de Marco (1931–2010)	Malta	WEOG	Forty-fifth
1991		Samir Shihabi (1925–2010)	Saudi Arabia	Asia	Forty-sixth
1992		Stoyan Ganev (1955–2013)	Bulgaria	EEG	Forty-seventh
1993		Rudy Insanally (1936–2023)	Guyana	GRULAC	Forty-eighth
1994		Amara Essy (1944–2025)	Ivory Coast	Africa	Forty-ninth
1995		Diogo Freitas do Amaral (1941–2019)	Portugal	WEOG	Fiftieth
1996		Razali Ismail (born 1939)	Malaysia	Asia	Fifty-first Tenth emergency special Nineteenth special
1997		Hennadiy Udovenko (1931–2013)	Ukraine	EEG	Fifty-second Tenth emergency special—Continuation Twentieth special
1998		Didier Opertti (born 1937)	Uruguay	GRULAC	Fifty-third Tenth emergency special—Continuation Twenty-first special
1999		Theo-Ben Gurirab (1938–2018)	Namibia	Africa	Fifty-fourth Twenty-second special Twenty-third special Twenty-fourth special
2000		Harri Holkeri (1937–2011)	Finland	WEOG	Fifty-fifth Tenth emergency special—Continuation Twenty-fifth special Twenty-sixth special
2001		Han Seung-soo (born 1936)	South Korea	Asia	Fifty-sixth Tenth emergency special—Continuation Twenty-seventh special
2002		Jan Kavan (born 1946)	Czech Republic	EEG	Fifty-seventh Tenth emergency special—Continuation
2003		Julian Hunte (born 1940)	Saint Lucia	GRULAC	Fifty-eighth Tenth emergency special—Continuation
2004		Jean Ping (born 1942)	Gabon	Africa	Fifty-ninth Twenty-eighth special
2005		Jan Eliasson (born 1940)	Sweden	WEOG	Sixtieth
2006		Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa (born 1952)	Bahrain	Asia	Sixty-first Tenth emergency special—Continuation
2007		Srgjan Kerim (born 1948)	FYR Macedonia	EEG	Sixty-second
2008		Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (1933–2017)	Nicaragua	GRULAC	Sixty-third
2009		Ali Treki (1937–2015)	Libya	Africa	Sixty-fourth
2010		Joseph Deiss (born 1946)	Switzerland	WEOG	Sixty-fifth
2011		Nassir Al-Nasser (born 1952)	Qatar	Asia-Pacific	Sixty-sixth
2012		Vuk Jeremić (born 1975)	Serbia	EEG	Sixty-seventh (election)
2013		John William Ashe (1954–2016)	Antigua and Barbuda	GRULAC	Sixty-eighth
2014		Sam Kutesa (born 1949)	Uganda	Africa	Sixty-ninth Twenty-ninth special
2015		Mogens Lykketoft (born 1946)	Denmark	WEOG	Seventieth Thirtieth special
2016		Peter Thomson (born 1948)	Fiji	Asia-Pacific	Seventy-first (election)
2017		Miroslav Lajčák (born 1963)	Slovakia	EEG	Seventy-second Tenth emergency special—Continuation
2018		María Fernanda Espinosa (born 1964)	Ecuador	GRULAC	Seventy-third
2019		Tijjani Muhammad-Bande (born 1957)	Nigeria	Africa	Seventy-fourth
2020		Volkan Bozkır (born 1950)	Turkey	WEOG	Seventy-fifth
2021		Abdulla Shahid (born 1962)	Maldives	Asia-Pacific	Seventy-sixth Eleventh emergency special
2022		Csaba Kőrösi (born 1958)	Hungary	EEG	Seventy-seventh
2023		Dennis Francis (born 1956)	Trinidad and Tobago	GRULAC	Seventy-eighth
2024		Philémon Yang (born 1947)	Cameroon	Africa	Seventy-ninth
2025		Annalena Baerbock (born 1980)	Germany	WEOG	Eightieth
2026		Khalilur Rahman (born 1954)	Bangladesh	Asia-Pacific	Eighty-first (election)

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

See also

• President of the United Nations Security Council
• President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council
• Vice-President of the United Nations General Assembly
• United Nations General Committee
• High-Level Week of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly 2025
• List of UN General Assembly sessions

External links

• UN: List of UN General Assembly presidents
• Rules of procedure of the General Assembly: President and Vice-Presidents
• UN General Assembly President Election Reform.
• UNelections.org.
• Elections and appointments (2020-2021)