CARACAS:  Venezuela’s campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council is reaching a climax in the face of fierce resistance from the Bush administration.

Hugo Chávez has invested billions of dollars and a year of globetrotting in trying to cement his position as a global player. Venezuelan diplomats now predict they will win a General Assembly vote this month on their country’s bid for a two-year spot on the 15-member council, giving President Chávez a platform to assail the US and champion his ally Iran.

Victory is not assured because the vote is secret and countries can break promises to vote a certain way. But analysts agree that Caracas, awash with oil wealth and a leading critic of the White House, is well positioned. “It would be a big psychological defeat for the US and be recorded as such,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based thinktank. “The US reputation in Latin America is at its lowest since the end of the second world war.”

Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue, said Mr Chávez was determined to extend his influence beyond Latin America. The contest has become a personal battle between the former paratrooper and George Bush. Mr Chávez used a general assembly address in New York last month to brand his foe a “devil” and said the podium still reeked of sulphur from President Bush’s address a day earlier. Later he called the US leader an alcoholic.

Mr Bush reportedly speaks in private about “beating” the self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary. “He speaks very personally about it,” said Mark Feierstein, a former state department official who works for Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Washington-based political consultancy that operates in Latin America. The presidents are also vying over Nicaragua, where Washington’s cold war nemesis, Daniel Ortega, could return to power in an election next month. Mr Chávez has endorsed Mr Ortega and offered cheap oil to his supporters.

The US, along with Mexico and Colombia, has backed Guatemala to fill Latin America’s Security Council seat, one of 10 rotating seats alongside the five permanent members, China, Russia, France, Britain and the US. Argentina and Brazil back Venezuela. The lack of a regional consensus means there will be a secret ballot of the general assembly’s 192 members.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service