Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces was elected as the President of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
She will be succeeding Miroslav Lajcak, the current Assembly President.
Poet and politician, Espinosa secured 128 votes against 62 votes obtained by UN Ambassador Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake of Honduras, the only other candidate.
With this, Espinosa Garces became the fourth woman to head the UNGA.
The previous women leaders of the Assembly were
India’sVijaya Lakshmi Pandit in 1953
Liberia’s Angie Elisabeth Brooks in 1969 and
Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain in 2006.
Espinosa is also the first woman ever from Latin America and the Caribbean to preside over the Assembly.