Closing campaign by Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala City. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
Bernardo Arévalo (Montevideo, 64 years old) receives a group of students in the central park of Escuintla in southern Guatemala. The tropical sound of the cumbia passes from hand to hand among the youth until it reaches the presidential candidate of the Movimiento Semilla, who grabs the güiro and dances. Then he plays the drums with the drumsticks. The video posted to his TikTok account on Aug. 6 with the caption, “Didn’t you know this facet of me?” was shared by tens of thousands of people. And partly so, the sociologist, doctor of philosophy and social anthropology and diplomat specializing in conflict resolution, with stories on social networks that bring him closer to the youngest, enters the second round of voting on August 20 as a favorite Become the next President of the most populous country in Central America.
Despite his name not appearing in any pool before the first round of voting on June 25, the founder of Movimiento Semilla, a party promoted by intellectuals and young professionals outraged by traditional forms of politics, surprisingly managed to win the received the second most votes. Since then, and in just two months, Arévalo has moved up to first place in the polls, giving him a nearly 30-point lead over former First Lady Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope (UNE), who did it in her third attempt When she became president, she gave up her social democratic roots to set out on a quest to win over the most conservative voters.
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This politician, who describes himself as a social democrat, was Guatemala’s ambassador to Spain, among other diplomatic posts, and has headed the Movimiento Semilla party since 2020, a party that emerged in the heat of the 2015 anti-corruption protests. According to opinion polls, he has managed to wow Guatemalans with a strong anti-corruption message and an atypical anti-system discourse. Far from using inflammatory messages, Arévalo mostly responds calmly to attacks from his rival, who accuses him of being a foreigner – the candidate was born in Uruguay during the exile of his father, former President Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951). , born. – , and from ignorance of the country because they have lived abroad for several periods, to disbelief in God and a desire to enforce gender ideology and abortion in Guatemala, although their program does not provide for any change in this regard.
“To the people of Guatemala: this is exactly the kind of lies and information they are trying to deceive and distract them with,” the candidate reiterated last Monday in the only presidential debate to have taken place before the second round. Arévalo also remained calm about the attempts to challenge the results of the first round and to exclude his party from the proceedings through court decisions. The Seed Movement has been at the center of an investigation into alleged forgery of signatures on supporters of sympathizers for the party’s founding, something that has not been successful and which he and his team attribute to a desire by traditional political elites to remove them from the board .
Two Semilla supporters at the end of the election campaign this Wednesday in Guatemala City. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
“They didn’t see us coming,” he repeated again and again after the first round. If he is elected president, his main promise will be to restore Guatemala’s institutions, which have been stifled by corruption, and from there to put the state at the service of the people. But Arévalo promises no miracles for Guatemala, a country of 17.6 million people where almost 60% of the population lives below the poverty line and where there are major deficits in health, education and infrastructure. “We always say, ‘We don’t have a wand.’ “The country’s problems will not be solved in four years, but we can start and that’s what we have to prove,” he said in an interview with EL PAÍS this week.
The Rise of “Uncle Bernie”
Bernardo Arévalo was born in Uruguay in 1958 and lived as a child between Caracas, Mexico City and Santiago de Chile due to the exile of his parents, both Guatemalans. He studied in Israel and the Netherlands. Semilla’s co-founder is the author of several books on democracy, peace processes, security and the role of the army. He also ran Interpeace for Latin America, an NGO where he was distinguished for his work on conflict resolution in Guatemala, other countries in the region and Africa. A decade ago, he joined the Seed Movement, which began as a group of academics and intellectuals convened by sociologist Edelberto Torres Rivas to propose solutions on the fringes of politics, and which eventually morphed into a political party after the Democratic Spring of 2015.
Bernardo Arévalo this Thursday at his campaign headquarters in Guatemala City. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
In 2020, Arévalo became chairman of Seed in Congress, a bank that won 23 MPs in the June 25 election. That election night, he was the surprise candidate to make it to the second round, and his face was beginning to become popular with Guatemalans. For his campaign, made up of interdisciplinary teams mostly led by young people, work began to bring the entire population closer to a person they define as “intelligent, stable and calm”.
“The strategy was to make Bernardo known as Bernardo and not the son of [Juan José] Not only Arévalo, but also his personality, his naturalness, to call for a vote later. And through all of that, TikTok was a great tool, followed by Twitter,” explains Semilla campaign manager Justo Pérez. As part of this strategy, he stresses, the participation of the party’s elected MPs is fundamental, including some young people with great appeal on social networks, who used their accounts and traveled around the country to spread the party’s message and the Candidates to publicize beyond the urban centers in which it has its main bases.
“Bernardo is very charismatic. All of a sudden he becomes a teacher on stage and stuff, but I think what made TikTok possible was to see who he is. He’s a very likeable guy, very talkative, jolly, super cheerful and I think that pushed him a little to push the boundaries of knowledge because he’s a super bearable person, as we say in Guatemala,” explains one these MPs. Roman Castellanos. , 38 years old.
From these networks also came the character of “Uncle Bernie”, as his younger followers call him, where the candidate shows his most human side: from his family photos to his personal preferences, such as his passion for chess or his fondness for pork rind. “It only shows Bernardo’s closest side, because as you can see, he has a very good relationship with young people,” says Justo Pérez at his campaign headquarters, where an army of professionals, mostly in their 30s, brings him the nets, the election campaign finance and strategy. “He’s someone, despite being an intellectual and having a PhD in philosophy, who never puts up a barrier with young people, and I would say almost nobody in general.” That’s why we started, this Bernardo, who likes us a lot to give petrol.”
Bernardo Arévalo is commonly portrayed as “the son of Guatemala’s finest president,” a recognition bestowed for several generations on Juan José Arévalo, the reformist leader who ruled the Central American country from 1945 to 1951 following the triumph of the October Revolution in 1944, which put an end to a cycle of dictatorships. His older supporters often remind the candidate of their affection for his father. And although he is aware of the historical burden he represents, at the end of the campaign this week he showed his desire to shape his own political history: “I am not my father, but I follow his same path,” he told hundreds Trailer in Park Central of Guatemala City. If the polls hold up, he will face the challenge on August 20 to deliver on his promise to govern Guatemala differently.
Workplace of the Movimiento Semilla campaign team, two days before the presidential elections. August 17, 2023, Guatemala City, Guatemala.SANDRA SEBASTIAN
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