Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last night appeared to have failed in his bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the U.N. body charged with maintaining interna-tional peace and security.
Last night, with voting con-tinuing at the United Nations General Assembly in New York at the 10th round, Venezuela lagged 110-77 behind the United States-backed Guatemala with five countries abstaining. One hundred and twenty-five votes are needed to secure the two-year seat being vacated by Argentina and reserved for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Diplomats were expected to find a compromise candidate. However, voting has been drawn out in the past with 155 rounds needed to fill the same seat in 1979, when Mexico represented the region.
Lead role
Support for Guatemala has been anathema within CARICOM given its land claim on member state Belize, and lead role in lobbying the World Trade Organisation to end European Union preferential trading support for the region's banana exports.
With CARICOM's choice looking to have lost, Anthony Hylton, Jamaica's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, emphasised that CARICOM's decision was a 'position of principle'. "We don't have per-manent enemies, we vote on issues," Mr. Hylton told The Gleaner.
Given its poor relations with CARICOM, Guatemala had the U.S. lobby the region for the vote, an approach that contrasts with Mr. Chavez's 'oil diplomacy' of the Petrocaribe oil supply agreement - part of his 'Bolivarian' vision for greater regional unity.
However, yesterday's vote will be seen as a personal setback in his opposition to U.S. unilaterialism and dominance of the U.N. and in a recent speech delivered to the General Assembly he called U.S. President George Bush, 'the Devil'.
He has travelled the world extensively in recent months lobbying for support.
Indonesia, South Africa, Italy and Belgium yesterday all secured two-year seats, replacing Japan, Denmark, Greece and Tanzania. The Republic of Congo, Ghana, Peru, Qatar and Slovakia will serve for another year.
The UNSC is dominated by the five permanent members, the U.S., United Kingdom, France, China and Russia but any agreement needs a minimum of nine votes of the total 15.
