UN Council seat undecided after two days of voting

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Latin American nations today try to break the deadlock in the race for an open U.N. Security Council seat after Venezuela refused to pull out in favor of front-runner Guatemala.

Venezuela lagged well behind Guatemala on all 22 ballots except one, a tie, in two days of voting. Neither won the required two-thirds vote in the 192-member U.N. General Assembly for a seat on the prestigious Security Council.

The voting is scheduled to resume tomorrow morning. But first the 32-nation Latin American and Caribbean group, itself divided between Venezuela and Guatemala, meets informally today to discuss the impasse.

The balloting has surprised delegations, many of whom last week predicted that Venezuela would lead or even win the race despite or even because of strong U.S. support for Guatemala.

Armed with petrodollars, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tried to form an alliance in Asia, Africa and West Asia to challenge Washington's interests. Failure to get into the U.N.

Security Council would represent a setback for his ambitions for a bigger international profile.

But despite Guatemala's comfortable lead, Chavez said he had no intention of withdrawing and described the protracted voting as a showdown with the United States.

''I say to them and the whole world, Venezuela will keep fighting this battle,'' Chavez said during a meeting with a Chinese delegation in Caracas on Tuesday.

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.

Guatemala and Venezuela are vying for the Latin American seat Argentina will vacate on December 31 while Peru stays on the council until the end of 2007.

Chavez was widely criticized when, in a September U.N.

speech, he called President George W. Bush the ''devil'' and said the U.S. leader had left the smell of sulfur in the chamber.

''Many people felt it was bad taste,'' said Tanzanian Ambassador Augustine Mahiga. But he said Guatemala might have won the seat outright had the Washington not lobbied so hard on its behalf.

Guatemala's visiting foreign minister, Gert Rosenthal, said that by tradition, Venezuela ought to withdraw because it trails in the vote count.

''But we also are concerned about the integrity of the General Assembly,'' Rosenthal said yesterday. ''We are not going to fight this for weeks and weeks. We want to see how it evolves over the next few days'' before deciding what to do.

Venezuela's U.N. ambassador, Francisco Arias Cardenas, told reporters yesterday his country would only give up its quest for a council seat if President George W. Bush and his U.N.

ambassador, John Bolton, stopped their ''extortion'' campaign on behalf of Guatemala.

In response, Bolton said, ''I know arm twisting when I see it. And it is not happening on the part of the United States.'' ''You can draw one conclusion: Venezuela is not going to win. So the question then is whether the decision to stay in is going to take us to record territory,'' Bolton added.

In 1979, a contest between Colombia and Cuba went to 155 rounds. Mexico then emerged as the compromise candidate.

Chile for one was pushing for a new candidate.

''Chile continues to think that it is necessary to have a consensus candidate, a candidate of unity,'' said its U.N.

ambassador, Heraldo Munoz.

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 Jan. 1.

REUTERS DKA SND13-6