"Venezuela on Thursday won a seat on the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council -- a move that the U.S. quickly branded 'an embarrassment' and further proof that its decision last year to leave the body last was the right one.
There had been a last-ditch push in the last 10 days by Costa Rica to deny them the seat, but Venezuela took nine more votes, securing the seat with 105 votes.
Venezuela has descended into economic and social ruin as dictator Nicolas Maduro has been engaged in a tug-of-war for power with Juan Guaido, the U.S.-recognized president since elections this year...
Human rights groups also criticized the election. Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News that the decision was a 'clear cut validation of the Trump administration's decision to get off the Council, to withhold funding, and to refuse to legitimize it.'
'With today's result, less than half of the members of the U.N.'s top human rights body are fully free democracies,' she said..."