In what many saw as a showdown between the U.S. and Venezuela, the United Nations deadlocked Monday over whether to give a two-year Security Council seat to the leftist-run South American nation or to a U.S.-backed country, Guatemala.
After 10 rounds of contentious balloting in the General Assembly, neither country could secure enough votes to win, a result many saw as an embarrassment to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the anti-U.S. firebrand who had campaigned hard to win the seat and boasted that he had the votes.
Guatemala won most of the rounds of voting. But with neither side winning the needed two-thirds majority, the voting was suspended and was scheduled to resume on Tuesday, when analysts expected a compromise candidate to emerge.
“There have been cases that have gone into as many as 100 ballots. I doubt it’s going to go that long,” said Edward Luck, a UN expert at Columbia University. “It’s pretty clear that neither is going to make it.”
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Chavez described his oil-rich nation’s UN bid as a battle against U.S. imperialism. But he may have hurt his country’s chances when he gave a speech to the UN General Assembly last month in which he called President Bush “the devil” and a “world dictator.”
`Shot itself in the foot’
“It was a very effective campaign on the part of the United States, but Venezuela shot itself in the foot,” said Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University.
“Venezuela thought that by insulting the U.S. it could gain ground,” Gamarra said. “In many instances, it rubbed people the wrong way.”
Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington policy group, said Chavez’s speech cost Venezuela at least 15 votes and swung the tide away from the South American nation despite Guatemala’s poor human-rights record, which tarnished its candidacy.
“Chavez’s UN speech was a major tactical error,” Birns said. “It reduced his panache as a person of gravity and weight.”
Venezuela’s UN ambassador, Francisco Arias Cardenas, blamed U.S. pressure on smaller nations for his country’s failure to win.
The lengthy vote prompted John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, to recall the 2000 U.S. presidential election. “This has just begun,” he told reporters in New York.
Guatemala secured the lead in the early rounds of voting and garnered as many as 116 of the estimated 125 votes needed to win.
Venezuela caught up by the middle rounds, but Guatemala regained its advantage as the voting ended for the day.
Guatemala had 110 votes to Venezuela’s 77 on the 10th and last ballot of the day.
Although the balloting was secret, Guatemala apparently secured the support of Europe, Central America and a handful of South American countries such as Peru and Colombia.
But Latin American powerhouses such as Argentina and Brazil announced they would vote for Venezuela, along with many Arab and Caribbean nations. Chile was one of a handful of nations that abstained in Monday’s balloting.
There are five permanent members of the UN Security Council–Britain, Russia, China, France and the United States– each with veto power.
The council also has 10 non-permanent seats assigned to various regions for two-year periods.
The seat sought by Venezuela and Guatemala currently is held by Argentina.
The U.S. made it a priority at the UN to defeat Chavez, who opposes virtually every U.S. foreign policy position while forging close alliances with such adversaries of the U.S. as Cuba and Iran.
Luck said Monday’s deadlock was “not a bad outcome” for the U.S. given that its goal “was to block Venezuela more than to promote Guatemala.”
In the end, Luck said, member states were unwilling to provide Chavez with such a high-profile platform to bash the U.S., given that the world’s only superpower is vital to solving world problems.
`Looking for common ground’
“The Security Council is where major powers come together to deal with security issues,” he said.
“They are looking for common ground. They are not looking for a spoiler to just embarrass the U.S.”
One UN diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic were mentioned as possible compromise candidates should the vote between Guatemala and Venezuela remain deadlocked.
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