Sandra Torres, Guatemala’s presidential candidate, votes on the second ballot. Christian Gutierrez (EFE)
Sandra Torres has been fighting to become Guatemala’s first female president for 12 years, a goal she set for herself in 2011 when her then-husband Álvaro Colom’s term ended. Torres’ energy and political turns to achieve his goal shaped his tireless character and ability to overcome obstacles to achieve his goals, his ambition for power, his former co-religionists say.
In his quest for the presidency, Torres “destroyed and blurred” the National Unity of Hope, the party that a group of visionaries founded more than 20 years ago to become the benchmark for social democracy in Latin America, Fernando Barillas recalled , one of them its founders. The ideas Torres has been defending in recent weeks’ second-round campaign “represent the recalcitrant right,” the complete opposite of the party’s mission and social programs installed during the past Colom government that died in January become the engine of the party, Barillas told EL PAÍS.
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The 67-year-old communicator defines herself as a woman of the people. He was born in Melchor de Mencos, a small town in the Petén department of northern Guatemala, on the border with Belize. Torres grants few interviews to the press, and when he agrees, he takes a confrontational stance on all questions, such as when asked about the gifts, money, and trips to Cancun he offers during his rallies or search for political allies.
Torres cultivated his public image through the role of benefactor and support provided by the Guatemalan institutions to the President’s wife. In addition to serving in the Social Work Secretariat, he controlled the delivery of food bags and cash transfers to families in poverty settling during the Colom administration (2008–2012).
Although the office of First Lady is not a public office and Torres should not be held accountable, she exercised authority and “aligned” the ministers of Colom’s cabinet who were responsible for implementing social programs. It’s not power, it’s leadership, Torres said during the 2019 election campaign. Barillas credits Torres’ leadership for being “imposed and unyielding” in nature and making social programs work.
Advertisement for Sandra Torres at La Terminal market in Guatemala City. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
During the government of the National Unity of Hope, the Guatemalans suffered several disasters, remembers Barillas, who was entrusted as official spokesman for the Colom Trust. Thus, Torres built his political charisma on his sensitivity to the needs of people affected by a storm, a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake. “She spent hours listening to people, being responsive to their needs and doing the impossible to give everyone what they needed: when they asked for medicine, when a family had lost their chicken farm or had become homeless, Sandra searched for a way to get them,” Barillas recalled. At the time, it was not uncommon to see long lines of people seeking help outside the headquarters of the President’s wife’s Secretary of Social Affairs. Torres saw the handouts as an incentive to lure voters, say those attending the rallies. “Sandra gave us medicine, she helped us.”
At the end of her husband’s administration, Torres wanted to be president but was unable to run because the constitution forbids the successor in power to have any affinity with the president. Barillas and other party leaders suggested Torres run for a seat. “I could have won a landslide victory for them and the party could have run a strong bench from Congress, but Sandra was furious like she’s never seen them before, she called us traitors… she told us everything,” Barillas continues . Proof that Torres would do anything to achieve his goal was evident when he divorced Colom so he could run for the presidency. His strategy failed as a court order indicated his separation was a legal mockery of access to the candidacy and registration was denied.
This was the first major break with fellow believers in the party founded by engineer Colom, who came from a reformist family of politicians. The Une party experienced many internal struggles. During Alejandro Giammattei’s government, Torres contested the party’s legal status with a group of MPs who did not wish to be under his command. With the support of various magistrates, Torres remained loyal to the faction and assumed the post of general secretary.
The deputies who remained in the party under Torres’ leadership joined the pro-government alliance, which supported the passing of the laws and budget, on behalf of the Giammattei government. Congressman Jorge Vargas, sanctioned by the United States for links to corruption networks, became Torres’ key player in Congress.
According to the State Department, Vargas “acts at the forefront of a network aimed at controlling contracts and operations in state-run ports for personal gain.” They also point out to him that he “maintained loyalty by paying bribes in return for the unions conducting blockades and strikes to advance political ends”. With his new position, Torres was preparing to banish the spirit of defeat that had plagued him in the previous two elections.
In 2015, the former first lady lost to comedian Jimmy Morales Cabrera, who triumphed thanks to the slogan “neither corrupt nor thief.” Torres’ vice president at the time was billionaire businessman Mario Leal Castillo, a former Patriot Party official whose government from 2012 to 2016 was marred by cases of major corruption.
Torres lured Castillo to make his party proposal more attractive to the business elite, but he failed. In his 2019 attempt, Torres teamed up with diplomat Carlos Raul Morales, the foreign minister during the comedian’s government who drove CICIG out of Guatemala. In the second round, the competition was so aggressive that then-candidate Alejandro Giammattei promised to “do everything in my power to get Ms. Sandra Torres in prison”.
Torres went to prison, but not at the behest of Giammattei. When the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity investigated corruption offenses, they found evidence to prosecute Torres for illegal election financing. Torres spent four months in prison and was released during the tenure of Consuelo Porras, who was sanctioned by the State Department as a corrupt and undemocratic actor. The UNE candidate praised Porras’ management for not having “politicized”.
The candidate during her final election campaign in Guatemala City. SANDRA SEBASTIAN
A mistake that could deprive you of the power to “co-govern”.
While waiting for the election year and the start of the political campaigns, Sandra Torres served as a key player in Congress. “A lot of the negotiations that Alejandro Giammattei or Jimmy Morales or even the Patriot Party had to go through to mobilize their MPs to vote for the nation’s general budget or other legislation,” explains political scientist Marielos Chang.
In the current election campaign, Torres has taken over the speech of former presidential candidate Zury Ríos, daughter of genocidal dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, who spoke out against abortion and gender identity and in defense of the traditional family.
Repeating the speech by Ríos, who was sixth in the first round, is a “desperate move” that could strip him of the power to co-govern, as was the case with Jimmy Morales and Alejandro Giammattei, Chang argues.
Torres is second, although the polls predict that a likely defeat would not only deprive him of another chance to fondle the president’s sash but could also strip him of the political power to negotiate in Congress. However, the UNE party has the second-biggest seat for the next legislature, with 28 MPs, behind the Giammattei party bloc, which won 39 seats.
In fact, four children from Torres’ first marriage to Edgar de Leon Sotomayor won seats in the June 25 elections: Lourdes Teresita de León Torres and Nadia Lorena de León Torres won seats in the Congress of the Republic. Édgar Antonio de León Torres will be a member of the Central American Parliament and Sandra Raquel de León Torres will also be a deputy member of the regional parliament. With the exception of Nadia, who ran with the group Nosotros, Torres’ three children ran for the UNE party.
When asked how he identified himself in a pre-round interview, Torres downplayed his performances, concluding with the phrase, “My ideology is Guatemala.” In his third political campaign, Torres smeared the Social Democratic Party and most likely undermined the Power she controls from Congress, which she turned down due to her desire to achieve the presidency.
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