Election Season in Guatemala

It’s election season here in Guatemala, which is both hopeful and terrifying at the same time. It’s hopeful because the polls have the candidates in a dead heat. It’s the first time a left-leaning candidate has had a fighting chance in over fifty years. It’s terrifying because extreme violence has marked this election. Over fifty candidates, family members, election workers and party activists have been killed and countless more attacked and intimidated since last September. Most of the attacks have allegedly been carried out organized crime, drug cartels and youth gangs in an attempt to intimidate politicians. Unsurprisingly, the left has had far more casualties. This is particularly disturbing given Guatemala’s history of horrific political violence and how fragile and recent the 1996 peace accords are.

The two front runners are Alvaro Colom, of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), the National Unity of Hope and General Otto Perez Molina, of the Partido Partiotico (PP), the Patriotic Party. Colom has been a businessman and a civil servant. He represented UNE in 2003, losing to conservative Oscar Berger of the Gran Alianza Nacional (GANA), the Grand National Alliance. Colom’s platform centers on fighting poverty through education and healthcare and cracking down on government inefficiency and corruption. Obviously, I’m supporting him.

Perez Molina is a retired General, and was in charge of Army Intelligence during the civil war. As such Perez Molina is popular for his law and order position. His party’s slogan is “Mano Dura”, which translates to “Hard Hand”. He’s promised to increase police forces by 50% and reinstate the death penalty. This makes him especially popular in Guatemala City, which has horrible gang problems and one of the highest murder rates in the Americas. Perez Molina was implicated in the 1998 murder of human rights activist Bishop Juan Gerardi, but like so many other former army officers, he’s never been charged and justice will probably never be served.

Because Guatemala uses a proportional representation system, rather than a first past the post system, which we use in the States, there are a number of parties, which can change and exchange power from one election to the next. Another interesting candidate is Rigoberta Menchu, of Encuentro por Guatelama (EG), Encounter for Guatemala. Menchu won a Nobel Prize for her book, I, Rigoberta Menchu, about the atrocities she and her community suffered during the civil war.

At the same time, the man pictured here, Efrain Rios Montt, of the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), the Guatemalan Republican Front, is running for congress. Rios Montt was a general and then military dictator during the civil war, responsible for massacres, murders, disappearances, systematic torture and rape, in what the UN has called a government sponsored genocide. Rios Montt and other military leaders maintain that they were only fighting a counter insurgency against communist guerillas. Spain is currently seeking his extradition, charging him with crimes against humanity. He would be immune from prosecution if elected. Rios Montt attended the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia and had enjoyed considerable support from the United States. Rios Montt is also an evangelical minister, a friend of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Ronald Reagan.

Unfortunately, the general election is going to be our last day in Guatemala, September 9th, so I won’t be able to work as a poll watcher. If necessary, a run-off will be held on November 9th. In the meantime I’ve been volunteering as an election educator, teaching people how to vote. While this may sound silly, it’s hard to vote here. In some areas, you might be turned away and told you can’t vote, even though you’re a registered voter. (Sounds familiar, huh?) Your vote will be disqualified if you don’t use an X, or if your X extends outside of the box. Plus, if you’re illiterate, it may be hard to find your candidate among all of the other contenders. So I help people practice voting. It is awesome work.