2023-06-26 21:31:00
The former first lady and winner of the first round in Guatemala Sandra Torres Edwin Bercin | EFE
They will meet in the second round on August 20
26 jun 2023 . Updated at 9:31 p.m.
A resounding slap from Guatemalans to the traditional parties in the first round of the presidential elections. The null vote was the preferred option, gathering 17.4% of the preferences of a citizenry fed up with her political practices and corruption.
Sandra Torres, candidate of the center-left National Unity for Hope (UNE), related by part of the population to the old politics and who in recent times has adopted more conservative positions, was the second most voted option, after null, with 15.7% of the vote, and in the second round on August 20 will face the big surprise of the day, the social democrat Bernardo Arvalo, from the Seed Movement, which emerged during the anti-government protests of 2015 and who received an 11 .8% support.
The polls failed miserably. They considerably overestimated Torres and were not even close to glimpse the rapid rise of Árvalo, who never exceeded 3% of preferences in the polls for elections described as fraudulent by the population and analysts, after the disqualification by of the electoral Justice of three candidates, of different political signs, who stood out in the polls.
From these movements a call was made to protest at the polls that crystallized in the victory of the null vote, in a very important representation of the whites (6.9% of the votes) and in second place for Árvalo, against all odds.
Family background
The social democratic candidate is the son of former reformist president Juan José Arvalo (1945-1951). He was born 65 years ago in Uruguay due to the persecution of his family during the military dictatorship that began in 1954. He joined the Seed Movement during the protests against the Government of Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015) due to accusations of corruption against him in the cases arising from the investigations of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig), sponsored by the United Nations and finished in 2019 by former President Jimmy Morales.
Congratulations to Guatemala! They may cut all the flowers, but spring will always return, wrote on Twitter, paraphrasing the Guatemalan poet Julia Esquivel, the current Colombian Defense Minister, Ivn Velásquez, former head of the Cicig in the Central American country.
In recent years, more than a hundred prosecutors, judges, politicians, and journalists who investigated corruption have left Guatemala, feeling threatened.
The right-wing Manuel Conde, candidate of the official Vamos movement, of President Alejandro Giammatei, barely achieved 7.3% of the votes, being left out of the second round.
Filed in: Guatemala
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