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FRANCISCO FLORES FOLDS, EXPOSING RIFTS IN ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES AS VOTE FAILS.

Article Excerpt
El Salvador's former President Francisco Flores (1999-2004) withdrew as a candidate for secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS) on April 7, leaving Mexico's Luis Ernesto Derbez and Chile's Jose Miguel Insulza to vie for the job in the April 11 election. Flores was the favored candidate of the US. His departure might, therefore, represent the first time in OAS history that the US will not have handpicked the leader of the 34-nation organization (see NotiCen, 2005-02-03), but that conclusion is not yet certain.

In a withdrawal statement, Flores said that a late analysis of his candidacy had convinced him that pressing on could "contradict the principle for which we entered the contest, which was the vindication of the Central American region." He meant this in the sense that the region had been harmed by the forced resignation of Costa Rica's Miguel Angel Rodriguez (see NotiCen, 2004-10-14), noting that "the conditions of his resignation left the region with the need to reassert its position in the hemisphere."

But the Flores vote count did not add up to vindication. With 18 votes needed to win, Flores had the commitment only of El Salvador, Guatemala,...

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