My Mother — Page 97
Fulfilment of Dream (B) 97 of the new regime to continue at the United Nations and resigned. Before the Latins could agree upon another candidate, Professor Malalasekra, Per manent Representative of Ceylon, announced his candidature for the Presidency, and it began to be said that if the Asians wanted the Presidency they could have it. At this juncture Abdul Mun’im Rifa’i insisted that I should let my name go forward as a candidate for the Presidency. Professor Malalasekra had been his country’s Ambassador in Moscow and claimed that he had between twenty-five and thirty votes (presumably communist and Buddhist States) in his pocket, and that if another candidate even ran neck to neck with him, he would win with a majority of at least twenty-five. Before the opening of the Session it had become clear that I would be elected President. I read the Rules of the Assembly, but was very apprehensive how I would acquit myself in the Chair. Half a dozen or more points of order, calling for interpretation of the Rules, were raised in every sitting of the Assembly and the President had to rule on them in his stride, as it were. Immediately before the opening of the Assembly I withdrew for the noon Prayer and in the course of it supplicated humbly and earnestly for support and guidance. The outgoing President called the sitting to order. In the bal- lot for the Presidency, Professor Malalasekra had twenty-seven votes and I had seventy-two. I was led to the rostrum and began the proceedings with the recitation of verses 26 to 29 of Chapter 20 of the Holy Quran. A Christian journal drew attention to this and remarked that Christian Presidents had never ventured to pronounce the name of God from the rostrum lest the com- munist represen tatives should take offence. Here was a Muslim