Less than two months ago, before the first round of presidential elections, many Guatemalans seemed to feel they were heading towards the common evil of recent decades, which is voting for the lesser evil. The polls failed to see Bernardo Arévalo of the Movimiento Semilla, a progressive, anti-system party that emerged in the heat of the 2015 social protests and has managed to capitalize on citizen fatigue in a corruption-riddled country. If those polls don’t fail again, this Sunday this 64-year-old progressive sociologist will defeat former first lady Sandra Torres, who made a 180-degree turn in her positions in her third attempt at the presidency by no longer defended Social Democracy is turning to far more conservative values, stoking the spirits of socialism and warning of the invasion of ‘foreign values’ if the rival wins.
“I would describe this scenario, which no one could have foreseen, as the ending of a movie where the underdog or the least expected manages to make it to the final round and there is a high probability that he will win,” says die Political scientist Marielos Chang The lead of almost 30 points that the polls give Arévalo over Torres. The son of former President Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951) made the fight against corruption the focus of his election campaign. On this basis, when he becomes president, he wants to start working for the well-being of the people in a country in Central America where 60% of its more than 17 million inhabitants live below the poverty line and with great social disadvantages.
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If what the polls say is true, “Guatemala would show the world that it is possible to stop accelerating democratic election backlash,” Chang adds. For them, democracy is at stake in their country this Sunday, after years of booming authoritarianism in which judges, prosecutors, journalists and other critical voices were persecuted. Sandra Torres’ victory, combined with traditional clientele politics, “would finally drive the nail into the coffin of our democracy,” explains the political scientist. “With Bernardo Arévalo, the issue is not that we are saved and the country will change overnight, but that we ensure four more years of democracy and the possibility of more political parties like Semilla, which neither need nor need the approval of Guatemala’s political elite. ‘ of the traditional media to participate in the elections and be victorious. “Basically, it’s the possibility of parties that have no connection to organized crime, to the political elite,” he affirms.
The anti-corruption message and the different way of campaigning in Arévalo, less resourced than traditional parties and promoted by a very young team with no ties to traditional politics, managed to inspire hope in a large part of the population: almost 65% of Guatemalans support him compared to 35% of Torres, according to the latest poll released this week by Prensa Libre. For Justo Pérez, Semilla’s campaign manager, reaching the second round was a “move into the big leagues” for a party that also won 23 seats in Congress on June 25. These elected MPs have been crucial in spreading Semilla’s message across the country, which has its main supporters in urban centers.
“The history of corruption cuts across all sectors. Of course there are more impoverished sectors where there is a more immediate political need, namely food, food etc, but I think we managed to reach those sectors by saying that it is corruption that prevents an efficient service, and that this is the case affects the lack of work and development in these places,” Pérez pointed out in an interview at his campaign headquarters in Guatemala City this week.
Sandra Torres and Bernardo Arevalo, in Guatemala. Moises Castillo (AP)
For her part, the candidate for the National Unity of Hope (UNE) has as her main campaign bid the resumption of the welfare programs for the most disadvantaged, which she led as First Lady. And as his previous two presidential attempts have shown, he enjoys greater support in rural areas, in places forgotten by the state that still remember those subsidies. Despite the electoral defeats, Marielos Chang describes the former first lady as a highly relevant figure in the country’s politics, thanks to the mobilization of mayors and MPs from her party.
“Many of the negotiations of [los expresidentes] Alejandro Giammattei or Jimmy Morales or even the Patriot Party had to go through it to mobilize their MPs to vote on the nation’s general budget or whatever legislation they enacted,” Chang explains. In this campaign, Torres has the evangelical pastor Román Guerra as his vice president, which may partially explain his campaign’s shift towards deeply conservative values. “No to abortion”; “Yes to the family of father and mother”; “No to the legalization of drugs,” read the placards he’s put up around the capital calling for people to vote, slogans he repeats whenever he gets the chance. The Arévalo campaign, which does not have a specific proposal to change these three aspects, accuses him of promoting disinformation.
The fear of traditional political elites
In the last few days, as Semilla’s progress in the polls broke, Sandra Torres’ campaign has raised specters of fraud without providing any evidence, questioning the system and even the work of the citizens who voluntarily participate in the process in the voting committees monitor those who transmit the data digitally. In most of these complaints, the UNE candidate reiterated investigations by a public ministry questioned that had, among other things, tried unsuccessfully to revoke the legal status of the Arévalo party.
These trials show that Semilla’s unexpected emergence is not welcomed by traditional political elites, who anxiously await the end of the privileges they have enjoyed for years, thanks to a system by which they protect each other. Since news broke that the Arévalo party was entering the second round of voting, these groups have tried to halt their progress through legal prosecutions, which in turn have prompted citizens to demand respect for their vote.
According to the Supreme Electoral Court, around 125,000 volunteers are ready this Sunday to ensure the transparency of the elections. The enthusiasm and spirit of civic service is alive among members of electoral boards and vote-taking bodies, despite investigations launched by the State Department that may eventually lead them to notice.
Supporters of Sandra Torres take part in her closing rally in Guatemala. CRISTINA CHIQUIN (Portal)
In early August, the Supreme Electoral Court turned over the lists of board members to the Election Crimes Prosecutor’s Office after the Valor party filed a complaint against former presidential candidate Zury Ríos, which pointed to alleged irregularities in the election records. The committees receive the election documents, coordinate the polling stations and polling stations and take over the counting up to the certification of the results protocols.
Oscar Jiménez, the coordinator of the Rafael Landívar University Voting Center, the largest in Guatemala City, which is expecting 15,500 people this Sunday, assures that some board members have resigned “for personal reasons” but that new volunteers have emerged to vote. “We are with all our energy for Guatemala,” he said.
The prosecutor’s investigation into the volunteers sparked such public outrage that they provided the final impetus for the creation of the Democratic Pact, an initiative to defend democracy and absolute respect for the electoral process. “We have seen malevolence” to try to “undermine and undermine voters’ credibility,” lawyer Gregorio Saavedra told EL PAÍS. The group is broad, bringing together business people, academics, citizens, artists and anyone working to defend the vote, he added.
The questions that have been raised about the process in recent days mean that while Arévalo enters the second round with a large margin in the polls, it is expected to be examined as if it were a closed election. In recent weeks there have been public complaints about alleged instructions from the UNE leadership to contest the results at all tables. The party has rejected such an order which, according to social media posts, came during a meeting in Melchor de Mencos, the town where Sandra Torres was born.
The prosecutors of the disputing parties are responsible for monitoring the ballot papers. Since the UNE is a party with a track record of more than 20 years in the field of patronage dynamics, which is possible thanks to the support of the ruling party, the UNE has financial guarantees for the 24,585 tables set up in Guatemala be used. Digital broadcaster Quorum has accessed recordings of a meeting between Torres, leaders of his group and members of the pro-government party Vamos, at which an agreement was reached to hire prosecutors from the presidential party for Torres to pay 300 quetzales ($38). .
A young woman takes part in the closing campaign of the Movimiento Semilla political party in Guatemala. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
For his part, Semilla began recruiting volunteer prosecutors through social media. “Our goal is to have prosecutors in all voting centers. Having them at all the tables is still a challenge,” Justo Pérez told EL PAÍS three days before the election. Until then, they were covered in 80% of the centers. The prosecutors’ importance becomes relevant amid questions about the results of the first round, which had to undergo a second scrutiny, and efforts to discredit the transparency of the vote.
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