2023-08-21 11:08:24
Mexico City In Guatemala, hope triumphed over frustration and anger at the political class on Sunday. In the run-off election for the presidency, left-liberal outsider Bernardo Arévalo of the Semilla (seed) party won a landslide victory. Almost two thirds of the voters (58 percent) voted for the 64-year-old.
Sandra Torres, who was considered the candidate of the ruling power elite, had no chance with 37 percent of the vote. Arévalo, son of the first reform president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951), was still considered an outsider before the first round at the end of June. He was forecast three percent.
The scientist and member of parliament gave people back hope that changes are possible within the democratic system. But the big question will be: will Arévalo also be able to take office in mid-January?
His victory became apparent after the first round of voting, which is why the country’s judiciary tried in vain to prevent him from entering the runoff and to withdraw his party’s registration.
And for days, opposing candidate Torres has been claiming that there are irregularities in voting and errors in counting, without submitting any evidence. The Organization of American States (OAS) described Sunday’s election as clean and transparent. Nevertheless, political observers believe it is possible that the public prosecutor’s office, which is considered to be for sale, will challenge the election in the interests of the ruling power elite.
Fight against corruption in Guatemala
Because the victory of “Uncle Bernie”, as the people affectionately call Arévalo, startles the “Pact of the Corrupt”. This has dominated the country’s institutions for decades and has always prevented real democratic change.
Sandra Torres
Sandra Torres, who was considered the candidate of the ruling power elite, had no chance with 37 percent of the vote.
(Photo: AP)
It is a network of the political elite, a dozen entrepreneurial families and the military that organizes and distributes power in the country. This pact has bought politicians and MPs, ensuring through parliament that key posts in the judiciary, the electoral council and other institutions are always given to ideological loyalists. In Guatemala there is an authoritarian project aimed at “destroying democracy,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) laments.
“We hope that a better future begins today,” Arévalo wrote on short message service X after voting. He wants to devote his main attention to the fight against corruption. “It has eaten away at the country’s institutions and destroyed important resources,” he said in a recent interview. According to Transparency International, corruption is dramatically high in the most populous Central American country. The country is ranked 150th out of 180 places.
The national economy is dominated by family monopolies, such as cement, beer, real estate and food, which always assert their interests. As a result, according to the World Bank, the country has one of the lowest tax rates in Latin America at around 11.6 percent in 2021, but at the same time almost 60 percent of the people have to make do with five dollars a day. At the same time, outgoing President Alejandro Giammatei is raking in almost $20,000 a month, he told the Spanish daily El País over the weekend.
>> Read here: Why more and more companies are producing in Mexico
According to Unicef, Guatemala has the fourth highest rate of malnourished children in the world. As one of the first measures, the future president wants to lower his salary. It was “absurdly high for a country like ours”.
That’s what Arevalo wants to achieve
In terms of content, Arévalo’s program most closely resembles that of European social democracy. He wants the state to play a stronger role in the economy, public investment in infrastructure, the establishment of state-owned companies and a competition policy. He has also promised to bring back journalists, judges and prosecutors who have fled the country fearing persecution.
Followers of Arevalo
Almost two thirds of the voters (58 percent) voted for the 64-year-old.
(Photo: dpa)
The future head of state was born in 1958 in Montevideo, Uruguay, where his father fled with his family in 1954. Arévalo junior lived in Caracas, Mexico City and Santiago de Chile as a child. He studied in Israel and the Netherlands.
The co-founder of Semilla is the author of several books on democracy and peace processes and for a time headed the Latin America section of Interpeace, an NGO working on peace issues.
>> Read here: Why Europe’s chances in Latin America are getting worse and worse
Ten years ago he joined the then “Semilla” movement, which was founded by academics and intellectuals. After the short democratic spring in 2015 as a result of the anti-corruption protests against President Otto Pérez Molina, “Semilla” became a party that entered parliament in 2019 and will initially have five, but from next year 24 MPs in parliament.
More: Risky bridgehead to the USA – German companies in Guatemala need strong nerves.
#Leftwing #candidate #Arévalo #wins #runoff #Guatemala #allowed #govern