Guatemalan-Venezuelan fight to win

Venezuela and Guatemala's tie up of the General Assembly is costing the United Nations (U.N) well over twenty thousand dollars a day. The Guatemalan-Venezuelan fight to win the one open Latin American seat in the Security Council for 2007 has been lingering since balloting began on October 16. The battle came to another stalemate today, ending on the 47th round of balloting, as neither country managed to obtain the required two-thirds majority of the one hundred and ninety-two U.N General Assembly members.

The hold-up for Venezuela has come after its President Hugo Chavez has turned Venezuela's campaign into a race against Washington not Guatemala. Chavez tore into Bush's Presidency last month announcing to the General Assembly "The devil came here yesterday and it smells of sulfur still today," referring to Bush, who had addressed the assembly at its annual meeting the day before. Many diplomats have stated that this speech has cost him votes on winning a Security Council seat.

Chavez claims his country wants a seat on the Security Council

so they can stop the United States from creating a unipolar world. Attaining a position on the Security Council will give Chavez a world platform to pour out his resentments towards Washington, a basis for why the United States is participating in its own firm lobbying against Venezuela. Ambassador Bolton stated outside the General Assembly, "We have given the reasons why we think Venezuela's candidacy is problematic and why Guatemala's candidacy has a lot of merit to it. And countries are making up their own minds, at least as far as we're concerned".

Guatemala backed by the United States is vying against Venezuela for the open seat. Francisco Javier Arias Cardenas, the Ambassador of Venezuela, has lashed out, saying Guatemala is "obscene” and "is Washington's puppet". Guatemala has been leading by at least 23 votes in each round of balloting. Its Foreign Minister stated today "Venezuela clearly is not doing well, but they want to bring us down with them as the proxy for the United States." Normally when this kinds of stalemate happens the country that is behind withdraws.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N John Bolton has claimed that it is important Washington prevents Venezuela from getting the seat because that will ensure that the Security Council work is not disrupted. "It's very rare for the United States to say anything in a Security Council race, and we didn't do this because of expectation of votes on the Council. We did it because of our concern for the integrity of the Council itself," he said.

Tomorrow the Foreign Ministers of both Venezuela and Guatemala are attending a meeting held by Grulac to discuss the stalemate. Both countries ambassadors said today they are willing to have consultations with Grulac tomorrow to try and agree on an alternative candidate. Heraldo Munoz, Chile's U.N. ambassador told reporters today "The votes are consolidated. They are frozen, shifts are minimal, and so we have to think of a political alternative."

In order for another candidate to be chosen, it has to first be agreed on by the contenders and then approved by Grulac's 35-members at the U.N. On Monday during a Grulac meeting, no decisions by the 35 nations were made on an alternative candidate. However, after the meeting Venezuela's ambassador said, "We have to be realistic, this has gone on for several days now, and we can see that there's no movement in either of the candidates being able to get two-thirds of the vote, so we have to think of a third consensus candidate for the region."

Venezuela and the United States have both said they would back the Dominican Republic, but this is just one alternative diplomats have mentioned along with Ecuador, Uruguay and Costa Rica.

December 31st is when Argentina the current member sitting in the Latin American seat will vacate and the new Latin American representative will take over. The most powerful members of the Security Council, the United States, China, Russia, France, and Britain are on it permanently; and then for two year terms ten other nations get to sit on it, five of which get elected each year.

The four other non-permanent Security Council seats were all decided on the first day of balloting with no interference. Without opposition Belgium and Italy got the European seats, Indonesia defeated Nepal in the race for the Asian seat, and South Africa was elected for the African seat.