Chavez: Reaping What He Sowed for Venzuela

This is pretty humorous. Seems that Chavez may have stunk-up his countries own chance at a seat on the UNSC. My heart bleeds for him.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on Monday appeared headed for a personal political defeat at the hands of US-backed Guatemala in his long-held goal to win a temporary seat at the United Nations Security Council.

Guatemala, which has never before held a non-permanent seat on the Security Council, beat Venezuela by 109 votes to 76 in a first round of voting at the General Assembly, and extended its lead to 114 votes versus 74 in the second round, and 116-70 in the third.

But in a fourth vote, Guatemala slipped back to 110 votes, while Venezuela rose back up to 75. Further rounds of voting were postponed until the afternoon.

While Guatemala had not yet garnered the two-thirds of votes it needed to win, as of Monday mid-day in New York, its larger-than-expected lead was a serious blow to the Venezuelan government.

Mr Chavez has travelled the world in recent months on a personal lobbying mission to persuade dozens of foreign leaders and governments to back his bid to win one of the two Council seats open to a Latin American nation.

But the Chavez government's early defeat at the UN comes only six weeks ahead of December's elections in Venezuela, in which Mr Chavez's chances of winning re-election are narrowing, according to recent opinion polls.

Wonder what this will do for his re-election campaign.

WaPo had this:

The results were an embarrassment to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who had waged a highly public campaign on the claim that his nation would use its seat on the council to speak out against the United States. The U.S. and its allies argued that Venezuela's stance could stymie the council and undermine its credibility.

Heh. No kidding. Not that it needs much help in that undermining, but that would make it even more of a joke than in already is.

Keep it up Hugo, you're doing great.