After 22 rounds of voting, US-backed Guatemala had won 21 rounds against rival Venezuela but had failed to attract the necessary two-thirds majority to secure a seat on the United Nations' most powerful decision-making body.
The deadlock came despite heavy lobbying in the General Assembly, with Venezuela's ambassador Francisco Arias Cardenas and US ambassador John Bolton trying to win over wavering members.
The United States is desperate to avoid the seat going to Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, has proved a thorn in Washington's side and last month in a world body address described his US counterpart George W. Bush as "the devil".
Guatemala led oil-rich Venezuela on Monday in every vote round but the sixth, which resulted in a tie.
Of 12 rounds conducted on Tuesday, Guatemala garnered between 100 and 112 votes to Venezuela's 75-85, meaning neither was close to winning.
The number of votes required to reach the threshold changes from round to round, depending on the number of abstentions among the 192 member states.
After marathon sessions on Monday and Tuesday, UN General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa ordered voting to continue on Thursday.
The pause gives time to conduct negotiations on Wednesday.
But the scene could be set for a protracted battle, with UN rules allowing for indefinite voting. A similar stand-off between Cuba and Colombia in October 1979 dragged on for more than two months and 154 rounds.
It ended in January 1980 with the election of a third candidate, Mexico.
A loss would sting Chavez. In remarks on Sunday, the firebrand leader described winning a Security Council seat as the centerpiece of his foreign policy.
On Tuesday, in Caracas, Chavez called the 22 ballot defeats "22 imperialist attacks on Venezuela."
"The United States is out to rule the world," he said.
Bolton, who has been working hard behind the scenes to obtain much-needed votes for Guatemala, said the United States was prepared to stick it out.
"Normally what happens in these circumstances is the country that's so far behind withdraws. We'll see if that's what happens here... The record's 154 (ballots). We're prepared to continue," he said.
He shrugged off comments by the Venezuelan ambassador, Arias Cardenas, who said he would accept a consensus candidate if Bolton admitted the United States had been strong-arming countries on how to vote.
"Countries are making up their own minds," Bolton insisted.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet added her voice to calls for a consensus candidate to be found to break the impasse.
"To be respected as a region we need to look at consensus solutions. Latin America needs a representative with broad support," she said in Santiago.
Washington is concerned that if Venezuela wins the seat, the Chavez government will use it to be disruptive, routinely oppose US measures and openly attack the United States.
Chavez saves his most vitriolic attacks for the Bush administration and in an address to the UN General Assembly last month said the podium still "smelled of sulphur" a day after the US president Bush had used it.
The council seat is being vacated at the end of the year by Argentina. The General Assembly is deciding on which nation will take it after the Latin American and Caribbean regional group failed to agree on a candidate.
The Security Council is made up of 15 members, including five veto-wielding permanent members -- China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia -- and 10 non-permanent members, five of which are replaced every year.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006