A Damaging Stalemate

The Financial Times looks at the stalemate in the balloting for the open Latin American seat on the UN Security Council. They call for the Latin American and Caribbean nations to exercise political maturity and put forward a compromise candidate before any further harm is done to the UN.

At first glance, the stalemate is a setback for both Venezuela and the US. Both within the Latin American region and at the UN, independent, oil-rich Venezuela appears too knee-jerk in its anti-Americanism to be acceptable, while economically vulnerable Guatemala is viewed as too much subject to US dictates. But the UN vote is particularly damaging for Venezuela's iconoclastic President Hugo Chávez who had travelled widely and spent heavily in his bid to win diplomatic support for his anti-American crusade. True, the US has campaigned hard against him, but many UN members are irritated by Mr Chávez's Manichean brand of politics and distrustful of his links to countries such as Iran.

They are right to be so. At a time when the world is groping towards a multilateral approach in the Middle East and elsewhere, Mr Chávez's confrontational approach to international affairs is unhelpful. Comparing President George W. Bush to the devil – as Mr Chávez did recently at the UN – may go down well among his grassroots supporters at home, but will hardly assist the cause of world peace.

If neither Venezuela nor Guatemala back down, a protracted series of votes is on the cards, akin perhaps to the four-month-long struggle of 1979 when a contest between Cuba and Colombia went to 154 rounds of balloting. Such a saga would, at best, be time-consuming and a damaging distraction from the UN's more pressing concerns.

Chavez is unlikely to back down easily since he has so much invested in this adventure. On the other hand, by failing to back down, he will eventually cause himself damage at home, at least one hopes that is the case. But the FT is quite correct here. The longer this stalls the UN from trying to solve any problems, the more it will damage what little credibility the institution still retains. With a new Secretary General coming in, there is a chance for real change in the UN. But only if they can break this deadlock in the General Assembly.