candidate first. On 8 April 2005, Francisco Flores withdrew his candidacy. He alleged the race was becoming too divisive for the Mesoamerican region. He also had the fewest supporters of the three. Flores, who initially appeared a promising choice, began losing support as the negotiations progressed. Up until Flores's withdrawal from the race, the U.S. State Department maintained that it wanted a Central American ex-president, and that Flores was its choice. Flores had the endorsement of El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic; significantly, from the earliest days of campaigning, neighboring Honduras said it would be unable to support Flores. First round election On 11 April 2005, the foreign ministers of the American nations (or their plenipotentiary representatives) gathered to elect the new Secretary General. Three successive rounds of voting resulted in a tie, with 17 votes going for each of the two candidates. After a recess of slightly over two hours, fourth and fifth ballots were held which also failed to break the tie. A press report published in the Buenos Aires daily La Nación on 12 April indicated that during that break, Roger Noriega of the U.S. state department and the foreign ministers of the Mercosur countries had been able to convince Grenada and Paraguay, respectively, to change their votes. Thus, although the fourth and fifth rounds also resulted in ties, the distribution of votes was allegedly different from the breakdown in the first three. Because of this unprecedented stalemate, in a private 30-minute gathering the states' representatives decided that a new vote would take place on 2 May 2005. Voting breakdown This is a list of the member countries according to their statements of official support for one or other of the candidates, together with inferences of the voting intentions of the other states as reported in the international press. All 34 active member nations of the OAS were entitled to one vote each. An absolute majority (18 votes) was needed to win the election. For the purposes of the following table, the OAS member states have been grouped into four regional blocs: CARICOM member states (14) are highlighted in . South American Community of Nations member states (10) are highlighted in (Guyana and Suriname are members of both the CARICOM and SACN, but are grouped with the former.) North American Free Trade Agreement member states (3) are highlighted in . The Spanish-speaking nations