Venezuela, Guatemala vie for U.N. Council Seat
By Pablo Bachelet
The Olympian
October 15, 2006

WASHINGTON - Elections to seats on the United Nations Security Council are usually drab affairs, beyond the diplomatic chatter and a sense of international respect for the winners. But not this year.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is challenging U.S.-backed Guatemala for a seat, triggering what many analysts and diplomats are calling the hottest Security Council race in nearly 30 years.

The 192 U.N. member nations will vote at a General Assembly session Monday on which of the two countries will succeed Argentina for a two-year term in the council seat reserved for Latin America. A two-thirds vote is required to win. There's a chance that neither will prevail and another country will be chosen as a compromise.

Chavez's self-avowed campaign to forge a Third World bloc against Washington, D.C.'s "hegemonistic tendencies" has transformed the race into a popularity contest between President Bush and the Venezuelan leader, who called Bush a devil last month during a speech to the General Assembly.

"In many ways, we can take this vote as a plebiscite on the U.S. position and how it's perceived within the U.N.," said Don Kraus, the executive vice president of Citizens for Global Solutions, a nonpartisan organization that advocates more cooperation among countries.

U.N. member nations also will vote Monday on council seats for representatives from Africa, Europe and Asia, but most of the attention will be on the Guatemala-Venezuela contest.

"I have never recalled so many media headlines" on a council election, said Heraldo Munoz, the U.N. ambassador from Chile. "The awareness has almost come to a man-on-the-street level."

To find a more contentious race, he added, one has to go back to Cuba's bids during the Cold War. In 1979, Cuba and Colombia went through 154 rounds of voting during three months - each failing to get the votes required for victory - before Mexico finally was picked as a consensus alternative.

Cuba ran again the following year, and after 23 rounds of voting in which several contenders rotated in and out, Panama emerged as the winner. Cuba eventually won a term, for 1990 and 1991.

A Chavez defeat would be a blow for his ambitions to become a leading voice of the underdeveloped world, while a victory would be an embarrassment for the Bush administration, which accuses the left-wing leader of everything from undermining democracy in Venezuela and around Latin America to failing to cooperate in the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism.

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