UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Ali Triki of Libya was elected as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday and promised to stand up for smaller countries in the world body.

The one-year position rotates between geographic groups and this was Africa's turn. The African Union backed Triki, Libya's minister for African affairs and a former U.N. ambassador, who was elected unopposed by the 192 U.N. member states.

He will succeed former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann in September. The outspoken Catholic priest won headlines by accusing the United States of "demonizing" Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel of practicing apartheid-style racial separation against the Palestinians.

Triki has been involved in the African Union's dealing with Sudan and Darfur. In March he criticized the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir who has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity .

The president of the General Assembly has little real power but a high profile, often speaking for smaller countries who complain that the Security Council is dominated by big powers.

Triki set the tone in a speech to the General Assembly in which he criticized big powers for spending trillions of dollars on weapons that could have been invested fighting poverty and promoting development.

Libya took over a two-year rotating seat on the Security Council at the start of 2008, a major step back to global acceptance after decades of isolation from the West.

Libya's decisions to accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland and to renounce its nuclear weapons program paved the way for its reemergence in international affairs over the past six years.