Hugo Chavez denied seat on UN Security Council

Despite his giveaways of free oil, the applause he received at his mockery of President Bush at the UN, foreign trips, subsidized oil sales from Venezuela's large reserves and pledges to spearhead a global anti-U.S. alliance, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez failed to get the required votes for his country to become a member of the United Nations Security Council. The main contender for the seat, Ecuador, has the backing of the US.



I think it is telling that the member nations, while amused to the point of laughter at Chavez's tirade against Bush, did not see him as leadership material. And the fact that he failed to win a single round of 35 voting rounds shows that this response to him is not merely a few anti-Chavez nations grabbing the opportunity to pay him back. The sentiment is not limited to the UNSC seat, either; Chavez's choice of Ecuadorean candidate for president has since distanced himself from Hugo.

I think your story needs to be fixed. Unless something happened quite recently I don't know of, the U.S.-backed candidate is Guatemala and while ahead in the polling, hasn't gotten the supermajority needed to win.

I think further rounds of balloting are necessary.

Read the 4th paragraph of my source:

Although Guatemala did not secure the two-thirds support needed for the seat either, diplomats say it is unlikely Venezuela can win when voting to break the impasse is due to resume next week.

Chavez blew it. If he wanted to win he had to welcome in the globalist bankers with open arms and let them setup a central bank to rape and pillage his country. What was this guy thinking anyways? Popularity doesn't always win elections.

Ok, but I'm not sure where you got that Ecuador is the U.S.-backed candidate.

I think it's still Guatemala.

Anyway, I think Chavez probably won't get it because of his over-the-top performance at the UN bashing the US and Bush. I bet he might have pulled it off if it wasn't for that.

double post

[edit on 21-10-2006 by jsobecky]

I see your point. The US has lobbied for Guatemala, not Ecuador.

The leftist cast the election for one of Latin America's rotating two-year council seats as between Venezuela and the United States, which lobbied openly for Guatemala.

In my summary of the article, I was referring to other incidents where Chavez has lost support, including the following:

The losses also followed a disappointing second-place showing by Chavez's leftist ally in Ecuador's presidential election Sunday that exposed the limits on his ambition to export his anti-Americanism in the region.


Ecuadorean candidate Rafael Correa, who faces a run-off ballot next month, has since distanced himself from Chavez, reassuring voters he would block the Venezuelan leader from interfering in his presidency