In the fragile and imperfect democracy of the most populous country in Central America, an unexpected second round takes place on Sunday August 20 to designate the next president of Guatemala. He will oppose Bernardo Arevalo, 64, of the Semilla (“seed”, center left) movement, who took observers by surprise by arriving in second position (with 11.77% of the votes cast) on June 25, in the first round, and Sandra Torres, 67, of the National Hope Union (Conservative), who had obtained 15.86% of the vote. Thursday, a last daily poll Prensa Libre gave Bernardo Arevalo the clear winner with a 30-point lead.
Born eight years ago during the anti-corruption protests that led to the fall of President Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015), Semilla was until then only a secondary and rather urban party. In the first round, he progressed in all territories, formulating progressive and ecological proposals, mainly campaigning on social networks due to a lower budget than his opponents.
Already an unfortunate finalist in the 2015 and 2019 elections, Sandra Torres is the widow of former President Alvaro Colom (left, 2008-2012). Labeled a social democrat for several years, Sandra Torres has tilted her campaign to the right. “I will declare the offenders ‘terrorists’, militarize the prisons and we will increase the number of police officers to 70,000”, she said during a televised debate on Monday. In a country marked by corruption, violence and poverty, she said she was determined to “attack drug traffickers head-on” and to “increase penalties” planned for them. The candidate repeated her vision of a society based on the traditional family and lambasted “gender ideology”.
“Black Campaign”
She also promises the creation of a program to help the poorest families with a basket of basic foodstuffs, but without increasing taxes. “Milk, oil, sugar, rice and beans: enough to guarantee the three times of the meal”according to its formula. Poverty affects 58% of the population according to the UN and nearly one child in two suffers from chronic malnutrition in this country of 17.6 million inhabitants.
His opponent, former founder of a parliamentary commission on the subject, has made the fight against impunity and institutional corruption a main line of his campaign. “Criminals are so active because they operate within corrupt governments, where they can buy off officials, judges, police and military”, said Bernardo Arevalo. Guatemala occupies the 150e rank (out of 180 countries) in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Semilla’s candidate accused his opponent of forming an alliance with the president [sortant Alejandro] Giammattei » and he denounced the “black campaign” which he considers to have been the object of his opponent and the institutions.
You have 38.63% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.