PUTIN JUST CALLED FOR AFRICA TO GET A PERMANENT UN SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT AND THE TIMING IS DELIBERATE
At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for expanding the UN Security Council to give Africa, Asia, and Latin America greater representation.
He also called for reforming the IMF, World Bank, and WTO to better reflect current global political and economic realities.
Africa accounts for more than a quarter of all UN member states. It has zero permanent seats on the Security Council. The five permanent members, America, Britain, France, China, and Russia, were decided in 1945 based on who won World War Two. The world has changed dramatically since then. The Security Council has not.
The African Union has been pushing for this reform for years. It calls it the Ezulwini Consensus. Africa wants two permanent seats with full veto power and five non-permanent seats. The argument is straightforward. A continent of 1.4 billion people representing 55 countries deserves permanent representation in the body that makes decisions about global peace and security, including decisions directly affecting African conflicts.
Now read who is making this call.
Putin is not doing this out of altruism. Russia benefits from a reformed UN where Western bloc dominance is diluted. More African, Asian, and Latin American permanent members means more votes that do not automatically align with Washington and London.
But the argument itself is correct regardless of who is making it.
Africa being excluded from the permanent membership of the world’s most important security institution while its conflicts are regularly managed and mismanaged by that same body is an arrangement that serves Western convenience not global justice.
The Ezulwini Consensus deserves support on its merits. The fact that Putin is now championing it at a BRICS summit with 11 heads of state watching tells you that the political moment for this reform has arrived even if the motivation is not pure.
Africa should take the seat. The question of who helped get it there is secondary to the fact of having it.
What do you think? Should Africa have a permanent veto-holding seat on the UN Security Council?