Scoop Q&A With MFAT Re: UNSC Latin America Seat

Friday, 20 October 2006, 11:05 am
Article: Alastair Thompson

An intense contest is underway at the United Nations General Assembly over who will get the next Latin American seat on the United Nations Security Council. According to reports the level of votes for the two candidates Guatemala and Venezuela are fairly evenly split.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez recently made a big splash in the General Assembly in a speech in which he likened US President George Bush to "El Diablo" (the devil).

It would be fair to assume then that the United States is doing its level best to back Guatemala for the seat.

Scoop ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on which side of the divide New Zealand was presently sitting.

SCOOP: Is NZ voting for Guatemala or Venezuela for the United Nations Security Council, and why have we chosen to support that candidate?

MFAT RESPONSE: Elections to the UNSC are secret and members' voting decisions are not normally made public. As the voting is still underway we would not in any case make our voting position public.

SCOOP: Did either of them vote for NZ when we last stood for the UN Security Council?

MFAT RESPONSE: We don't really know. Elections to the UNSC are secret so we can't be sure how both countries voted when we last stood.

So there we have it. Clear as mud.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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