Bernardo Arévalo de León caused the surprise of the Guatemalan elections on Sunday. With almost 12% of the preferences, the candidate of the Movimiento Semilla, a progressive party born in the heat of the 2015 mobilizations, will meet former First Lady Sandra Torres in the second round on August 20, who was with around 16% the most chosen option. Arévalo (Montevideo, 64 years old) presents himself as “the son of the best president in Guatemala”, a recognition that several generations have given to Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, the reformist president who ruled the Central American country from 1945 to 1951. after the victory of the 1944 October Revolution, which ended a cycle of military dictatorships.
Arévalo, a sociologist with a PhD in philosophy and social anthropology, describes himself as a social democrat. He was born in Uruguay when his family was in exile due to persecution by the regime that regained power in 1954 and toppled President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The seed movement’s presidential candidate He is one of the founders of this force, promoted by intellectuals and young professionals outraged by the traditional methods of politics. The movement emerged as a political option to respond to demands from citizens’ demonstrations who took to the streets to express their opposition to the widespread corruption uncovered in the country by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Arévalo was elected MP in the 2019 elections, the first time that Semilla nominated candidates and that involved the candidacy of Thelma Aldana, the former Attorney General who led the fight against corruption with the CICIG and was briefly exiled cut.
After midnight on Sunday, the control already suspected the feat. The polls, which gave him just 3% of the vote, crashed on all forecasts, but the candidate was already in the second round. The politician then decided to visit the National Information Center (CNI) that the electoral authorities had set up in a hotel in Guatemala City. “We are very happy because we are a political party, we are not a collection of people but a party responding to a platform and a vision,” Arévalo told the journalists who surrounded him. “We’ve always known that the polls don’t reflect what people think,” he said.
Conflict Resolution Expert
What happened? For the political scientist Ricardo Sáenz, the desire for renewal of society and the rejection of a growing authoritarian tendency were central. “The seed movement was seen by 12% of voters as an option to stem this authoritarian offensive, curb corruption and start a process of change. And then the population could possibly think about the reasonableness of Bernardo Arévalo and the proposal of the Seed movement,” says Sáenz, who is a member of this party.
The political scientist recalls that the group of academics and intellectuals convened by the sociologist Edelberto Torres Rivas to propose solutions on the fringes of politics finally became a party after the democratic spring of 2015. “It has one of the most solid government programs there is.” In the discussion and in all the debates in which Bernardo Arévalo took part, he stood out for his intelligence, his composure and his ability to engage in dialogue. And this is important: He was an Interpeace official for a long time [organización internacional dedicada a la promoción de la paz]. So he is a specialist in conflict resolution. In Guatemala, in Africa, in Latin America, he has just been working on promoting dialogue processes.”
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With this baggage, Arévalo prepares for the fight in the second round. So far it has already managed to break through the traditional political chessboard in Guatemala.
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