2023-08-23 06:32:35
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Bernardo Arévalo’s diplomatic and peacebuilding experience more than qualifies him to lead Guatemala as the next president of a country mired in conflict, according to those who know him. But he will first have to overcome the forces that might prevent him from assuming power.
Guatemalans elected Arevalo by a landslide on Sunday, but her rival, former first lady Sandra Torres, has not conceded or commented on her defeat. The results of the elections have not been certified, a legal step necessary for Arévalo to become president.
And it is not the only problem: the prosecutor’s office continues to investigate the registration of his party, the Seed Movement, and at the time he already asked a judge to suspend him. And in the event that he becomes president, the powers that be might put him in the way when he takes over the country in five months.
Arévalo and those who know him say that he wants to unite the nation. His goal of rooting out corruption has made him enemies among the political and economic elite.
The 64-year-old politician, the son of former President Juan José Arévalo, was born in Uruguay, where his father went into exile following the 1954 overthrow, in a CIA-backed coup, of his successor, President Jacobo Árbenz, whom The United States considered a threat during the Cold War.
He returned to Guatemala as a teenager and left once more to continue his studies abroad. Arévalo then did what few children of wealthy families in the country do today: he returned. The country suffers from a continuing brain drain, not just from the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have left illegally for the United States in recent years, but also among the best-educated, who study abroad and never return.
Arévalo studied sociology and anthropology in Israel and the Netherlands, served as Guatemala’s ambassador to Spain and, for years, worked in Geneva for the non-governmental organization Interpeace.
There he had various functions, but among his contributions is being a pioneer in the peacebuilding work of the organization in Central America.
Interpeace started as a United Nations pilot program and one of its first projects was Guatemala. The nation was emerging from a 36-year internal conflict, and the goal was to support Guatemalan society.
Torres tried to present the years Arévalo spent abroad as a handicap. In his only debate, he repeatedly referred to him as a “Uruguayan deputy.”
Renée Lariviere, who is now Interpeace’s program director, worked closely with Arévalo for years on conflict resolution around the world. She indicated the collaborative political approach, seeking input from various sectors of Guatemalan society rather than trying to impose a comprehensive plan from outside.
“It was really regarding putting Guatemalans first in their efforts to help facilitate a process of finding solutions, which makes sense for their country,” said Lariviere, who described Arévalo as humble, wise and upright.
He still remembers that regarding eight years ago he told her that he was considering returning to Guatemala. He had gained experience all over the world and learned a lot.
“And now I feel that it is time to give back, to return to my roots,” Lariviere recalled regarding that conversation. He moved to his father’s old house, just a few blocks from the presidential offices.
“There is not much hope in terms of the new leadership styles that are appearing in the world, not just in the region, and I think he really believed that it might make a difference,” he added.
In the two months that elapsed between the first round of the elections in June and the run-off on Sunday, Torres presented Arévalo as a left-wing radical, a communist who wanted to establish an authoritarian regime like those in Venezuela or Nicaragua.
But in his writings — dozens of scholarly articles and books — Arevalo comes across as more of a political pundit than a radical.
Several weeks before the second round, he was the star of the Guatemalan Book Fair. Copies of what had been his doctoral thesis published as a book — “Violent State and Political Army: State Formation and Military Function in Guatemala (1524-1963)” — sold out and he spent almost six hours signing autographs.
The diagnosis he made in 2008 of the problems that continue to plague Guatemala today was revealing and was framed in the context of the nation’s internal conflict.
“The political culture of Guatemalans is going through a process of change, but it is still permeated by perceptions and notions forged in a society subjected from its pre-Hispanic origins to authoritarian forms of government,” he wrote in an article published at the time in the Latin American journal of social sciences New Society “In this framework, an authoritarian notion of security still prevails today, which conceives the solution to the problem exclusively from the angle of repression.”
Edmond Mulet, who ran in the first round of the presidential elections as a candidate for the conservative Cabal party, considers Arévalo a friend. He pointed out that Torres’ characterization of his rival was absurd and that the politician is a moderate with a desire for mediation.
“He’ll want to unite the people,” Mulet said.
In an interview with The Associated Press in June, shortly following it appeared he had made it to the ballot, Arévalo indicated that the Seed Movement was trying to rebuild hope for Guatemalans. Corruption had fueled cynicism, despair and exhaustion to the point that people did not want to get involved in politics.
His call to the population was: “We have to take a step forward and recover that hope, because if it is not like that, we will not be able to get out of this situation.”
Allowing himself to look to the future for a moment, Arévalo said that “as a government, we have four years to lay the foundations for change, but change in our country is going to take much longer.”
Lariviere noted that he had been in close contact with him in the days leading up to the second round and that he seemed confident in his campaign, but doubtful regarding the result.
“I thought I might make it to the runoff because that’s enough,” he said he told her. “But I probably won’t win. I’m being realistic.”
“He’s the kind of leader the world needs today,” Lariviere said.
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