Caracas, 3 de octubre de 2003 - Offnews.info

30After 10 rounds of voting that took up much of yesterday, Guatemalamaintained a lead, but both countries fell short of the votes required to gain aseat on the 15-member council. Five of the members are permanent - theUnited States, Russia, China, Britain and France - and have veto power. Theother 10 serve two-year terms, with five of them elected each year.The UN itself has 192 member countries.Mexico and Cuba briefly threw their hats in the ring to break the tie, butgained no support from the packed house of diplomats.New rounds of voting will be held between now and the end of December,and new Latin countries may emerge on the ballots.In other regions, three other Security Council members were elected withoutcontest, including South Africa, Italy and Belgium. Indonesia won overNepal to represent Asia.But the Latin vote was one of the General Assembly's most tumultuous, a"David and Goliath" contest between Washington and Chavez. Althougheach new round of voting was greeted with loud cheers by Venezuela'sdelegation, the failure to win the seat was a humiliating rout after Chavez'swide acclaim at a recent meeting of non-aligned nations, a group of 118developing countries that includes Iran.Venezuela Slips in Voting for Seat on the Security CouncilBy WARREN HOGEVenezuela's campaign to gain Latin America's open seat on the SecurityCouncil next year suffered a setback on Monday when Guatemala, backedby the United States, established a wide lead and maintained it after 10ballots.Neither country obtained the necessary 125 votes -- two-thirds of thosevoting -- to win the seat outright, but Guatemala ended the day with a lead of110 to 77.