More than 9.3 million Guatemalans are called to the polls on Sunday’s election day to elect their next President: progressive sociologist Bernardo Arévalo of the Seed Movement and former First Lady Sandra Torres of the National Unity of the Esperanza (UNE) . who switched from social democracy to more conservative positions on her third attempt at president.
The influx into the 3,500 polling stations has been steady and relatively quiet since 7 a.m. local time, a day when many Guatemalans feel there is another election due to the unexpected emergence of the Seed Movement, a party that is in the heat emerged from the 2015 anti-corruption protests and challenges traditional methods of policy making.
That party’s presidential candidate, MP Bernardo Arévalo, who has a 30-point lead over his rival according to recent polls, voted before 9am at the Colegio La Patria in central Guatemala City. where he entered, surrounded by a swarm of journalists and gathered by representatives of Semilla, members of his campaign and some supporters who applauded him and shouted “Future President” and “Long live Arévalo!”
“Guatemalans: This is the time to vote with joy, let’s go vote early,” demanded Arévalo after casting his vote with his wife. “Today, like many Guatemalan families, we hope for a better future. May democracy triumph today,” he wrote on his social network account X in a message, to which he attached photos of him having breakfast with his family. After casting her vote, her mother accompanied her to her polling station.
Also at around 9am, Sandra Torres was voting in a residential area in southeast Guatemala City, calling for “honesty” in the voting process after insisting on denouncing “anomalies” in the process. “We will wait for the results with the team, with the game, as we have always said, close to the people,” said the UNE candidate. A group of vendors from La Terminal market, one of Torres’ strongest supporters in the capital, arrived at his polling station and presented him with a bouquet of flowers.
The former first lady has persisted in recent days in raising specters of fraud without providing evidence, questioning the system and even the work of citizens who voluntarily oversee the process at election reception committees or 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.
I invite my friends and family to exercise their right to vote and participate in this civic festival that we are celebrating today in Guatemala. 💚👍 pic.twitter.com/K1Qajhy9Ik
— Sandra Torres (@SandraTorresGUA) August 20, 2023
The Election Observation Mission (MOE-GT) reported that all centers opened on time and no relevant incidents had been reported by noon. The mission’s observers, deployed in all departments, reported that “the opening of the polling stations was efficient and peaceful”. According to reports, prosecutors from the National Unity of Hope are present at 96% of the polling stations and 82% from the Seed movement.
“We will achieve a historic result”
That party’s MP, Samuel Pérez, one of those who accompanied Arévalo to the Guatemala City elections, assured that the party had managed to grow from 500 prosecutors to 19,000 “ready to defend democracy”. However, according to his colleague Román Castellanos, another of the 23 MPs the party will nominate in the new congress, they will not be able to have them at all the tables, especially in areas far from the north of the country. “We will achieve a historic result, rarely seen in Guatemala’s political history,” Pérez said optimistically in statements to EL PAÍS.
A child accompanies his parents to vote for the second round of presidential elections in Guatemala City, Guatemala today. Esteban Biba (EFE)
Attempts to ban Semilla from the election campaign by court order or to challenge the trial show that the party’s unexpected rise is not welcomed by traditional political elites. That raises fears of potential challenges after the vote count begins at 6 p.m. this afternoon. Faced with this possibility, Samuel Pérez assures that both the seed movement and citizens are ready to fight to defend their voices.
“We were prepared from the moment they tried to challenge the party’s registration four years ago, so we faced political persecution from the State Ministry and all actors in the corruption and impunity regime,” Pérez said. “This is everyday life for us. We’re not scared. We are ready. The legal teams are ready and I think the people of Guatemala are ready too.”
Even the school where Bernardo Arévalo voted was approached by Rebeca Sánchez, a lawyer who came with her family to support who should become Guatemala’s next president. “We feel like this is the first time we’ve voted out of conviction, because we believe in and want change. “We come with great excitement and great hope that there will be a change of government and that the whole system will start to change,” the woman, who says she has been supporting Semilla for more than four years, told EL PAÍS because she considers it an option with no commitment to traditional politics and transparent funding. “It won’t be easy after almost 70 years of living under dictatorships ruled by corruption, by predatory elites with their boots on our necks, but we have great hope.”
“We’re fed up with this, we hope to God there really is a change because we’re desperate,” added his mother, economist Blanca Ralda. “He is the son of the best president Guatemala has ever had. We’re hopeful,” Arévalo said, alluding to this. His father, Juan José Arévalo, ruled Guatemala between 1945 and 1951.
In another part of the capital, in a Zone 6 neighborhood of the Guatemalan capital, Marcelo Rojas, one of the managers of La Terminal market, went ahead with his family to vote for Sandra Torres: “We have hope in her. ‘ and her ideology,’ she said, defining her as a woman ‘of her word’ who provided sheet support to traders after the fires in some areas of the market of which she is a leader.
According to Guatemala Visible, an organization that oversees the process, turnout was estimated to be between 20 and 30 percent as of noon sharp. “It seems we are having a good election day,” its President Jorge Eskenasy told local media.
Election judges denounce threats
The second presidential election began at 7 a.m. with a public ceremony at the polling station in Erick Barrondo Park in the Guatemalan capital. At the end of the opening of voting, one of the judges of the Supreme Electoral Court interrupted the day. “I’m thinking about retiring,” Blanca Alfaro said Tuesday after the second round. The judge suspects that prosecutors have some allegations against her, which is why she would resign to avoid the work involved in the immunity waiver process. “Prison doesn’t kill,” he said worriedly.
Alfaro is one of the TSE’s five titular judges. Days before the first round, the New York Times revealed that Judge Alfaro had denounced bribes by President Alejandro Giammattei’s team outside the US embassy.
On Saturday night, Alfaro stated that she and fellow judge Vladimir Aguilar received threats via text messages. Giammattei announced this Sunday that the police have already identified where the phone was purchased and where the threats were made.
Like the judges, other election officials faced pressure during the elections. The State Department has opened 13 investigations related to the election process, including those targeting data entry staff and members of election boards and vote-taking bodies.
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