Latin American nations were unable on Wednesday to break the deadlock for the region's seat on the UN Security Council with Venezuela refusing to pull out of the race against US-backed Guatemala.
After 22 ballots on Monday and Tuesday, Venezuela lagged some 30 votes behind Guatemala 21 times. Neither nation reached the required two-thirds vote in the 192-member UN General Assembly for a two-year seat on the Security Council.
Voting will resume on Thursday and probably on Friday unless General Assembly President Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain cuts off the repetitive balloting, which diplomats said she was unlikely to do.
Armed with petrodollars, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tried to form an alliance in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to challenge Washington's interests. Failure to get into the UN Security Council would represent a setback for his ambitions for a bigger international profile.
"We don't enjoy paralysing the work of the General Assembly. We don't enjoy divisions in the Latin American group," Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal said after a meeting of 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
But Rosenthal said since there was no agreement on a compromise or consensus candidate, "so why not pick the country that had the most votes in the General Assembly?"
Compromise candidates mentioned are Uruguay or Paraguay in South America. In Central America, the candidates would be Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, which are next in the line-up for council seats from the region.
Several diplomats said Venezuela would have had more votes if Chavez had not called US President George W. Bush "the "devil" in his September General Assembly speech.
But they said heavy lobbying by the United States had cost Guatemala votes.
Chavez gave no sign of withdrawing and described the protracted voting as a showdown with the United States.
"Twenty-two consecutive blasts of imperialism resisted by Venezuela," he said late on Tuesday. "Whatever the final result of this battle, the victory is ours -- a moral victory for Venezuela."
'THIRD WAY'
His UN ambassador, Francisco Arias Cardenas, said a requirement for his country to pull out of the race would be for the "United States to stop arm-twisting in the Assembly, to have Mr. (US Ambassador John) Bolton stay seated in his chair, without exercising pressure," Arias Cardenas told reporters on Wednesday."
Wednesday's meeting had requested Guatemala and Venezuela to talk to each other and come up with a solution, which has not happened yet.
"It's up to them to propose a formula so that (we) can get back and discuss it, and consider that hypothesis, a third way," said Peru's UN ambassador, Jorge Voto-Bernales. "It's in their hands to decide when to move towards a third candidate."
The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China hold permanent seats on the 15-member Security Council. Ten other nations sit on the council for two-year terms, five elected each year.
Guatemala and Venezuela are vying for the Latin American seat Argentina will vacate on Dec. 31, while Peru stays on the council until the end of 2007.
In other regions, South Africa, Indonesia, Italy and Belgium received the necessary votes on Monday to win two-year terms in the council beginning on January 1.