Friday, October 27, 2006

by Bill Varner and Mark Drajem

UNITED NATIONS, (Bloomberg): Venezuela has asked a second country, the Dominican Republic, to become a candidate for a Latin American seat on the United Nations Security Council and end the deadlocked race with Guatemala.

Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez said on Thursday that he was contacted by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro Wednesday about becoming a candidate. Venezuela has also conferred with Bolivia.

"We are going to consider it as a possibility," Fernandez told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It depends on Guatemala. It's important to have a different solution." The overtures to Bolivia and the Dominican Republic signal Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's recognition that it is unlikely he can prevail in the contest, which shaped up as a battle with the US, and that he will soon withdraw.

Chavez yesterday said he telephoned Bolivian President Evo Morales about Bolivia becoming a compromise candidate. Chavez said Morales told him that Bolivia was "at the order of Venezuela to do that, if it will achieve consensus." The Venezuelan leader, who rules a country with the Western Hemisphere's largest oil reserves, called President George W. Bush the "devil" in a speech to the General Assembly last month.

Chavez campaigned for the Security Council seat to combat what he has described as US domination of the panel.

Guatemala, which is backed by the US received 100 votes -- 23 fewer than needed to win -- and Venezuela got 82 in the final round of voting yesterday. Voting is scheduled to resume on October 31.

The foreign ministers of Guatemala and Venezuela didn't reach agreement on a way out of the impasse during a meeting today in New York.

"Guatemala informed us they were not ready to give us a formula to reach a compromise," Venezuela's Maduro said after the meeting.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal said his government would try to swing votes in Africa in order to reach the two-thirds majority needed to win the seat.

Fernandez met Bush at the White House yesterday for trade talks. Bush assured him that the US is working to begin the Central American Free Trade Agreement "as soon as possible." The Dominican leader said his country's lawmakers and US negotiators are in the "final phase" of crafting amendments tied to Cafta.

Victory in the Security Council race requires a two-thirds majority of votes cast by the UN's 192 member governments. The winning government will take its seat on the UN's highest body on January 1.

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