Yearbook 2007
Guatemala. According to
CountryAAH, Álvaro Colom, candidate for the center-left
alliance Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), won the
second round of the presidential election on November 4 with
53 percent against 47 percent for right-wing candidate Otto
Pérez Molina. The turnout was low; only half of those
eligible to vote. However, the election campaign was
violent; inter alia the party secretary for Perez Molina's
party Partido Patriota (PP) was murdered and one of the
mayoral candidates for the Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchús
party Encuentro por Guatemala (EC). Incidentally, she
received just over 3 percent of the presidential vote. Prior
to the first round of elections on September 9, a total of
50 people died, many in connection with violent protests
against suspected electoral fraud and voting sabotage.
Even the congressional and local elections held on
September 9 became a triumph for Colom's UNE. In Congress,
the party's seats were increased by one-third to 48 out of
158. The party did not get its own majority, but Colom's
opportunities to gather support for voting in the House were
still considered good. The remarkably poor result of Frente
Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), whose mandate was halved,
was outweighed by its leader, the former dictator Efraín
Ríos Montt, who is the subject of an international
investigation into human rights violations, given him
another four years of legal immunity. UNE also won the
majority of mayor posts in 18 of 22 provinces.
The violence in Guatemala caused tension in relation to El
Salvador in February, when three Salvadoran members of the
so-called Central American Parliament in Guatemala City were
murdered. Four Guatemalan police officers were arrested for
the act but were murdered only a few days later inside the
prison under unclear circumstances. The events focused on
Guatemala's recognized corrupt police force and its links to
international drug trafficking.
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