New Candidate May Be Sought for Deadlocked U.N. Election

Guatemala and Venezuela may pull out of their contentious race for a United Nations Security Council seat to negotiate a compromise candidate, diplomats said today.

Foreign ministers from the two Latin American nations plan to meet in New York tomorrow morning to discuss alternative candidates for the two-year seat, wire services reported this afternoon.

"They accept in principal that they will withdraw their candidacies. But they are not set on a third country," Brazilian Ambassador Ronaldo Sardenberg said, according to the Reuters news agency. "We encouraged them to reach a solution quickly, and we expressed our willingness to go for a consensus."

The two countries have been slugging it out for two weeks, to no avail. Guatemala has consistently attracted the most votes from the 192-member General Assembly, but it has not achieved the two-thirds majority required to win the prized seat.

Ambassadors from the two countries met today with Ecuador's ambassador Diego Cordovez, who chairs the General Assembly's Latin American and Caribbean group, to discuss a possible compromise candidate.

"There's no deal," Argentina's U.N. Ambassador César Mayoral said after the meeting, according to Reuters.

Later, though, some diplomats reported progress, even as several more rounds of voting failed to produce a winner this afternoon.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has mentioned Bolivia, a close ally, as a possible candidate for the seat representing 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations. Chávez said he spoke with Morales by phone earlier this week.

"I feel deeply represented by compañero Evo Morales and the people of Bolivia, who are our brothers in this battle," Chavez said in Caracas this afternoon, according to the Bloomberg news agency. "This is a game of chess, and sometimes it surprises you when one player rises here and another falls."

But Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal has called Bolivia an unacceptable alternative.

Latin American diplomats expressed hope that the two front-running candidates can hammer out an agreement as early as tomorrow.

"Any consensus of the Latin American-Caribbean group is based on the agreement between the two candidates, and that is why the meeting of the candidates' foreign ministers tomorrow is so important," Chilean U.N. Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz said today, according to Reuters.

Venezuela was the early favorite to win one of the 10 temporary Security Council seats. But comments Chávez made in a speech before the General Assembly last month, in which he called President Bush "the devil," dampened some members' enthusiasm for Venezuela, some diplomats have said.

Guyana Minister of Foreign Affairs Rudy Insanally told the Associated Press he was certain a compromise candidate could be found if Guatemala and Venezuela could not claim the seat.

The United States has strongly backed Guatemala, warning Chávez would be a poor choice because of his ties to North Korea and Iran -- nations that have defied the United Nations over their nuclear problems.

Yesterday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said his nation would withdraw from the race if three conditions were met, according to the Spanish wire service Efe.

"We could consider this alternative provided, however, that Guatemala resigns, the United States stops its crude blackmail of other world governments and a transparent process for discussions is open," Maduro said.