Bolivia on the UN Security Council?

It may well turnout to be one of those stories that fizzles out almost as it began – but for the moment there seems to be a tiny possibility that Bolivia, the land of llamas, street protests and Evo, might be elected to a position on the UN Security Council. Here's the tale.

Alongside the permanent Council members – the US, UK, China, France and Russia – there are another ten "non-permanent members" elected by region. For weeks Guatemala (a US ally) and Venezuela (let's say, not a US ally) have been battling it out in more than 35 votes, with no side winning the requisite majority.

If Venezuela (which has trailed its Central American competitor) ever had a shot at winning, that shot certainly evaporated with President Hugo Chavez's "Bush is the devil and I still smell sulfur at the podium" speech. Hence a nice reminder that sometimes in politics being in love with your rhetoric is not exactly a ticket to win friends.

So yesterday the Venezuelan government accepted reality and threw its formidable support behind an alternative candidate for the seat, Bolivia. When Evo Morales followed in Chavez's footsteps to the UN podium he was much more polite and later, when asked about the Sulfur Speech, said he thought it was wrong to get so personal. I doubt that is enough to get the US and other Morales non-friends to say, "Hey, that fellow in the sweater is a hell of a nice guy, how about a seat on the Council." But Bolivia is now one of the alternatives in play, along with Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile.

Now, I am not sure that Bolivia actually has a permanent ambassador yet at the UN, and certainly there will be doubters who ask, "What does Bolivia have to add to the weighty global debates before the Security Council?" But, actually, Bolivian membership on the Council could be a breath of political fresh air, depending on how it is handled.

For example, I'd like to see the new government take the key Council decisions and put them before the Bolivian people for debate. I am imagining a gathering in the Central Plaza in Cochabamba, where government officials solicit public input from gathered crowds about how to deal with, say, North Korea's detonation of a nuclear bomb.

A man in a black felt hat and worn sandals yells out, "What do they need a bomb for anyway? Who are they going to bomb, the US. Then they get blown up. Tell them to put the money into food. Caramba!"

One of the women selling fresh squeezed orange juice looks up from her cart and yells out, "Of course they want a bomb. You have a bomb no one invades you."

"Hey, if we had a bomb Chile would have to give us access to the sea, no?" yells out an old man with a cane and a hearing aid. "Tell Evo we want one. We'll give those Koreans gas."

A young woman from a university student's activist group chimes in, "No one should have the bomb. Tell the UN to take them away from the US and Russia. Their war makers, all of them."

Finally a grandmotherly woman stands up from a bench. The young man with her (probably her grandson) tells the crowd that the woman in gray braids and white straw hat wants to speak. She's the kind of woman one sees in neighborhoods on Sunday afternoons yelling at drunken young men and telling them to stop fighting.

"Señor," she asks the government representative, "You will see the President on this, no?"

"Si Señora."

"Tell them all to just stop it, the grandmothers are tired of breaking it up."