The surprise is confirmed in Guatemala. Center-left candidate Bernardo Arevalo won the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, August 20, according to official results from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).
“Fortunately, we already have an extremely important trend,” said Irma Palencia, president of the TSE, announcing that Mr. Arevalo, subject to attempts to be disqualified during the electoral campaign, had obtained 59% of the votes after the 95% count. votes. Her rival, former first lady Sandra Torres, garnered 36%, according to the official tally. The new president will take office on January 14, 2024.
The poll took place without any “significant incident” being reported in the country’s approximately 3,500 polling stations, the TSE said, pointing out without further details a “historic percentage of participation”.
Symbol of a new beginning
The two candidates in the running, Bernardo Arevalo, 64, and Sandra Torres, 67, both claim to be center left. The first embodies hopes for change, especially among young people who represent 16% of the 9.4 million registered voters, while her rival was considered the representative of the establishment.
Qualified to everyone’s surprise in the first round, Mr. Arevalo wants to be the symbol of a new start in a deeply unequal country. “We have been the victims, the prey, of corrupt politicians for years,” he said Wednesday. “To vote is to say clearly that it is the Guatemalan people who run this country, and not the corrupt,” he assured as, according to the polls, his victory was increasingly clear. This sociologist and former diplomat is the son of the country’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arevalo (1945-1951).
At the head of the National Unity of Hope (UNE) party, Sandra Torres had, for her part, promised social assistance programs and various subsidies for the poor. However, she had won the support of the right and evangelicals and multiplied the conservative speeches. The former wife of left-wing ex-president Alvaro Colom (2008-2012) enjoyed the silent support of outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei, whose mandate was marked by repression against magistrates and journalists who denounced corruption. She also had the support of the powerful economic elite allied to the government.
Concerns among the country’s economic and political elites
Ms. Torres, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the past, has focused her campaign on the fight against criminal gangs and against poverty, and has stepped up attacks on her rival, whom she called an outsider “because she was born in Uruguay during his father’s exile.
“We cannot allow Guatemala to fall into the hands of radicals. We cannot allow Guatemala to become a Venezuela or a Cuba,” said Ms. Torres, who faced similar accusations from right-wing rivals in her two previous campaigns. In the home stretch of the campaign on Friday, she even questioned the bias of the electoral process, saying she was “concerned about any tampering with the data” of vote counts by TSE authorized persons.
Bernardo Arevalo’s spectacular breakthrough has raised concerns among the country’s economic and political elites, who see him as a danger to their interests, and the prosecution has stepped up proceedings against him. On the advice of the prosecution, a judge had ordered on July 12 the suspension of his party Semilla for alleged irregularities during its creation in 2017. The Constitutional Court had suspended this decision, canceled Friday by the Supreme Court.
The day before, the prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, sanctioned for “corruption” by Washington, had announced possible arrests to come from leaders of Semilla. International community and analysts consider the actions of the prosecution as an attempt to remove Mr. Arevalo from the election.
Three decades after the end of its brutal civil war, Central America’s most populous country is mired in poverty, violence and corruption, driving thousands of Guatemalans to emigrate every year.