UNITED NATIONS – Guatemala and Venezuela agreed to withdraw from the race for a U.N. Security Council seat yesterday and support Panama instead, ending a lengthy deadlock and paving the way for the Central American nation to join the U.N.'s most powerful body.
Ecuador's U.N. Ambassador Diego Cordovez, who hosted two meetings yesterday between the Guatemalan and Venezuelan foreign ministers, made the announcement of the breakthrough at Ecuador's U.N. Mission.
“The two candidates reached an agreement to step down, and they came up with Panama as a consensus candidate,” Cordovez said.
The race became highly political because the United States has been supporting Guatemala over leftist Venezuela, which is led by the fiercely anti-American President Hugo Chávez. Chavez referred to President Bush as “the devil” in his speech last month to the General Assembly.
Supporters of both countries had refused to budge as voting dragged on through 47 ballots, the third-longest vote for a Security Council seat.
Guatemala led Venezuela in all but one ballot on which they tied, but could not muster the two-thirds majority in the 192-member General Assembly to win the seat designated for a Latin American or Caribbean candidate.
Cordovez said that Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro “will present Panama” to the 34 Latin American and Caribbean nations as a consensus candidate at a meeting today and that their approval is virtually certain.
With the backing of the two countries and the Latin American group, Panama's election by the General Assembly for a two-year term on the Security Council is also virtually assured.
The Dominican Republic had emerged as the leading compromise candidate, so the choice of Panama was a surprise. In the six ballots Tuesday, Barbados, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Jamaica each received one or two votes, and Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay had also been mentioned as possible alternatives.
Asked why Panama had been selected, Rosenthal said: “It's a country that unites South America and Central America. We're concerned about the idea of divisions between the north and the south of Latin America. We would like to put that idea to rest by seeking a country that is well-received at both extremes of our continent.”
He said Panama had agreed to be the consensus candidate and serve on the council.
“We are recognizing today this role of Panama as a political and geographical meeting point and we are very happy to reach this consensus,” said Venezuela's Maduro.
