2023-08-20 02:49:09
Guatemala finally reached the second presidential round, not without controversy surrounding the competition. This Sunday the candidates Sandra Torres and Bernardo Arévalo will count their support to find out who will be the successor to President Alejandro Giammattei.
It has been a long and problematic career, with the promotion to second place of Arévalo, from the Seed Movement, to the surprise of both; the attempts to annul his candidacy or the judicial measures to suspend the legal entity of his party.
Arévalo’s surprise has marked the period after the first electoral round, leading the progressive candidate to become the favorite of the voters, according to the most recent polls.
Torres won the first round but the scenario for this Sunday is very different. A poll by the pollster Cid Gallup released on Wednesday, carried out between August 4 and 13 of 1,819 Guatemalans of legal age and eligible to vote throughout the country, predicted that Arévalo would obtain 61% compared to 39% for the Social Democrat and former first lady. Another study revealed by the “Prensa Libre” newspaper on the same day shows a similar result, even with the gap a little wider.
Other surveys, such as that of the Innovem company, bring the numbers closer and affirm that the intention to vote in favor of Torres amounts to 47.67% compared to 44.87% for Arévalo, between August 10 and 15.
In any case, neither of the two competitors has a parliamentary majority, so they will have to negotiate and agree with political groups from across the spectrum in order to govern. Something that seems difficult, since the ruling party has not stopped questioning the viability of a candidacy for Arévalo, the first politician with a leftist discourse with a real opportunity to govern Guatemala in decades.
This Wednesday were the campaign closures. The one in Arévalo occurred in the capital with a massive meeting. There the candidate said that Sunday “is a tremendous opportunity where once again we feel that the decision is in our hands. It is not an ordinary second round, where the candidate of lies and misinformation intends to compete against him, but no, this is a different choice.” Arévalo has promised to fight corruption as his main management focus.
Sandra Torres, the woman trying for the third time to be president of GuatemalaEsteban BibaEFE
Sandra Torres signed a pact on Tuesday with an organization of retired soldiers to obtain their support for the second round of elections on Sunday, and also had acts with crowds. “We are going to go headfirst into crime and violence, while social assistance will return in the first hundred days of my government because there is a lot of poverty, unemployment and hunger. They will be better with me, ”she said to those present.
During her campaign, Torres – a social democrat who has toughened her speech to appeal to conservative voters – based her campaign on security, the economy and social protection. She proposed taking the Army to the streets and increasing the number of police officers from 43,000 to 70,000. She also wants to build four maximum security prisons and install an artificial intelligence video surveillance system to reduce crime on the streets.
On the other hand, he said that he would eliminate the tax on basic basket products, reduce the cost of electricity and activate a fund to help 150,000 single mothers in Guatemala.
against corruption
His opponent, Bernardo Arévalo, is also a Social Democrat but more aligned to the left. The son of the former president of Guatemala Juan José Arévalo has said that the objectives of his government would be the “rescue of the State in the face of corruption”, solve the development deficit around education, health, among others; and deepen public investment and private.
Its social development program includes expanding educational coverage with half a million more students in schools, creating 400 health units and expanding public services in homes such as support for the construction of homes and electricity and water coverage. The candidate promises to improve security by increasing the institution’s payroll by 12,000 police officers, and to build a prison for serious penalties that will concentrate the most dangerous criminals.
The electoral environment, however, has a sword of Damocles on it: this Thursday the prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche announced possible arrests of leaders of the Semilla party. “We do not rule out searches, we do not rule out arrest warrants, we do not rule out requests for a preliminary trial after August 20,” the prosecutor told reporters in the capital. “I estimate that after August 20 they will have to register the suspension of the political party in the system,” Semilla added, referring to a measure already ordered by the controversial judge Fredy Orellana, but revoked by the Constitutional Court.
Curruchiche acted against Semilla since Arévalo was among those chosen in the first round. He alleges that there were irregularities in the collection of citizen signatures to register the organization as a political party. Critics of him have denounced political motivations after the decision of the prosecutor sanctioned by the United States for corruption.
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