2023-06-25 05:18:48
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalans go to the polls on Sunday to elect president and vice president for the next four years, in one of the most eventful elections in the Central American country’s recent history, in which opposition candidates and there were indications to protect candidacies that augur the continuity of the system.
Just over nine million voters, the majority women, are eligible to also elect 160 deputies to Congress, 340 municipal mayors and 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament.
With no presidential candidate in the polls near the required 50% threshold, a second round of voting between the two main candidates — on August 20 — is all but certain. With three candidates excluded from the ballot by authorities, many Guatemalans have expressed disappointment with the options and a large number of spoiled votes are expected along with potentially low turnout.
President Alejandro Giammattei made an effort on Friday to validate the electoral process and appease the accusations, saying that the elections are “one more sign that we live in a solid democracy and that it is consolidated with periodic, free and participatory elections.”
“As the nation’s first public servant, I assure you that my government has provided all the guarantees so that election day can take place in a climate of peace, transparency, and security,” the president reaffirmed.
The accusations have fallen on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the highest authority on the matter, due to its discretionary criteria when registering or not candidates for elective positions. Some opponents such as Thelma Cabrera, the only left-wing indigenous woman who intended to run who was running accompanied by former attorney Jordán Rodas, were denied registration due to lack of requirements.
Carlos Pineda, a populist right-wing candidate who was favored by the polls, was also left out due to alleged irregularities in his appointment.
The accusations come from inside and outside, such as the one made by former Attorney General Thelma Aldana, who has taken refuge in the United States following denouncing persecution and criminalization once morest her. “What does not allow free and democratic elections in Guatemala is corruption and impunity,” she said on her official Twitter account.
“Justice operators, journalists and human rights defenders, we are in exile and imprisoned for fighting once morest the corrupt who want to continue governing,” the former prosecutor attacked.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal, as well as the courts of justice, which enter to elucidate electoral conflicts when required by the parties, favored two leading candidates: Sandra Torres, who arrives accompanied by Romeo Guerra, an evangelical pastor, which is prohibited by the Constitution; and Zury Ríos, daughter of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, despite the fact that the Magna Carta also prohibits anyone who led a coup (as Ríos Montt did in 1982) and his relatives from holding the presidency.
Almost 40,000 candidates participate in the elections, bidding for positions in the 22 departments of Guatemala, a country that will not be easy to govern and that is overwhelmed by corruption, drug trafficking, migration, insecurity and where the situation has worsened in recent years due to to a deterioration of democracy and the rule of law, according to experts.
Tiziano Breda, an expert researcher in Latin America at the Affari Internazionali Institute in Italy, believes that there will be no major changes in the country with the electoral offer that exists. “Not like the ones most Guatemalans would like to see,” he said.
“What is at stake is the configuration and correlation of force of the various parties in the institutions that will renew their representatives. In this context, no political force is going to have the capacity (or will) to address the country’s structural problems, including corruption,” he said. “Faced with this falsified electoral process, it remains to be seen what the response of the Guatemalans (null votes, abstention, etc.)”.
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