A man is voting in San Juan Sacatepequez this Sunday. LUIS ACOSTA (AFP)
Guatemala is waiting to find out which two candidates will face off in the second round of voting. Barring surprises, if all polling results are correct over the course of the campaign and tradition since the first democratic elections in 1985, the next president will be elected in the second round between the two candidates with the most votes this Sunday. According to the polls, the front-runners are former first lady Sandra Torres, diplomat Edmond Mulet and former MP Zury Ríos, daughter of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, so the two are expected to compete for the presidency next August 20. Guatemalans also elected Congress and mayors.
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At 6:00 p.m. local time, polling stations across the country closed and the count began after a peaceful day of polling station crowds and isolated incidents. The worst case occurred in the municipality of San José del Golfo in the north of the department of Guatemala, where riots have been raging since Saturday night because people from other cities were being transported and relocated to vote in that municipality. Faced with this situation, a group of neighbors threatened to set fire to a bus carrying people who were not from that town. Tensions continued until Sunday morning, after which the electoral authority decided to suspend voting, which will be repeated in the second round of voting scheduled for August 20.
Elsewhere, five of the country’s 340 municipalities experienced incidents such as ballot burning due to dissatisfaction with voter recruitment. According to prosecutors, as of 3 p.m., 31 people had been arrested for election-related crimes. The independent platform Mirador Electoral has reported more than a hundred complaints about the delivery of goods, farm equipment and money in return for voting for certain parties.
The voices of the three hands
Nine million Guatemalans were called upon to elect a president and renew Congress, in addition to 20 members of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) and municipal mayors. The first round of voting took place this Sunday, after a campaign marred by fatigue due to corruption permeating various levels of the state and suspicions of “fraud” by the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), which excluded three candidates from the process had, who were considered the top candidates. In addition, in the last few days before the vote, various publications reported about alleged bribes that electoral judges received from the ruling party.
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Zury Ríos is voting this Sunday in Guatemala City. Esteban Biba (EFE)
Of the top three candidates, according to the polls, the first to vote was Zury Ríos, daughter of Ríos Montt, the dictator who died in 2018 at the age of 91, charged with the genocide of indigenous Mayan Ixils during the civil war war was before the court. The former MP cast her ballot at the National School of Commercial Sciences in the historic center of the capital, dressed in a Chichicastenango dog, a traditional Mayan shawl, and accompanied by her daughters. “Voting is the most important thing, it’s our vote that shapes the ballot,” he said before urging citizens to vote. The candidate from the right-wing alliance Valor-Unionista is in third place in the polls with just over 9% of voting intentions.
First in these polls is Sandra Torres, who has 21.3% of support according to the latest poll released Thursday. The former First Lady voted at the Valle Verde School in Zone 15 of Guatemala City. “Today the future of our country and of Guatemalan families is being defined in the years to come and it is important to cast an intelligent and conscious vote,” said the National Unity of Hope (UNE) candidate, encouraging young people to go to the polls . Over the course of his political career, Torres moved from social democracy to more conservative positions. It is the third time that Álvaro Colom’s widow is running for a presidential election. The top two lost in the second round to Jimmy Morales and Alejandro Giammattei.
The last of the three frontrunners to vote was Edmond Mulet, and he did so as a family with his wife Karen Lind and one of their two children. The centre-right candidate is second in the polls with his Cabal faction.
“Absence rates will increase,” warned Manfredo Marroquín, former columnist for elPeriódico and director of Acción Ciudadana, a group that makes up the Electoral Viewpoint. These elections were marked by popular disillusionment and the zero and blank votes, which polls say have doubled in just over a month.
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