UNITED NATIONS (Reuters): Latin American and Caribbean nations unanimously endorsed Panama on Friday as their candidate for a two-year U.N. Security Council seat after weeks of deadlock between Venezuela and US-backed Guatemala.

The agreement in the 35-nation UN bloc cleared the way for Panama's formal election to the 15-nation council on Tuesday.

"It was unanimous," Argentine Ambassador Cesar Mayoral told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the group.

The deadlock was broken on Wednesday after Venezuela and Guatemala agreed to withdraw their candidacies for the coveted seat, and threw their support behind Panama.

But it took two more days for the Latin American and Caribbean bloc to endorse that move.

Venezuela's failure to win the seat opening up in January on the most powerful U.N. body was a setback for President Hugo Chavez, who saw the council as reinforcing his efforts to be a leading anti-U.S. voice on the world stage.

The Venezuelan leader portrayed the contest as a battle against efforts by U.S. president George W. Bush to dominate the United Nations.

The Bush administration, for its part, warned that Venezuela would use the council seat to obstruct international initiatives with which it disagreed.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton this week said a September U.N. speech in which Chavez cast Bush as "the devil" was a key factor in the race, "which I think was taken by many of the members of the General Assembly to be indicative of how they'd behave on the council."

"It was an act of 'podiacide' 'shooting yourself in the foot'," Bolton said on Thursday.

The contest between Guatemala and Venezuela went through 47 rounds of balloting in the 192-nation General Assembly before the two countries gave up and agreed on a compromise candidate.

Guatemala led Venezuela by 20 to 30 votes in all, but one of those rounds fell short of the needed two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.

The United States, Russia, Britain, France and China hold five permanent seats on the Security Council. Ten other nations sit on the council for two-year terms, five elected each year.

Guatemala and Venezuela were vying for a seat earmarked for a Latin American or Caribbean state and now held by Argentina.