Guatemalans head to the polls, hoping their new leader will bring real change

Guatemalans go to the polls on Sunday to pick a new president, hopeful that the country’s next leader would give respite from rising prices and put a stop to violence and corruption.

The two candidates propose diametrically opposed routes forward. In her third presidential attempt, former first lady Sandra Torres became an ally of outgoing, very unpopular President Alejandro Giammattei. Her progressive Seed Movement opponent, Bernardo Arévalo, rode a wave of popular discontent at politicians to a surprising berth in the runoff.

Guatemala, the most populous country in Central America and the region’s largest economy, continues to suffer from severe poverty and violence, which has led hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to flee in recent years.

The first round of voting, which took place on June 25, proceeded rather smoothly until the results revealed that Arévalo had earned an unexpected seat in the runoff. Because the preliminary results were dragged into Guatemala’s co-opted court system, many Guatemalans are concerned that voters will not get the ultimate say on Sunday.

The Attorney General’s Office in Guatemala is looking into Arévalo’s party for allegedly obtaining fake signatures for its registration years ago. The claims have been denied by the party as politically motivated.

Torres said Friday at her final campaign rally in Guatemala City’s enormous central market that she would not accept a vote that did not go her way. “We’re going to defend vote by vote because today democracy is at risk (and) because they want to steal the elections,” she said.

Arévalo, a lawmaker and former diplomat, is the son of former President Juan José Arévalo, the first leftist president of Guatemala’s democratic era. The elder Arévalo is still revered by many for establishing fundamental elements of Guatemalan society such as social security and labor regulations.

But Torres has painted her opponent as a radical leftist who threatens Guatemalans’ conservative values on issues including sexual identity and abortion.

“We’re not going to let them influence our children with strange and foreign ideologies,” she said Friday.

Having run largely populist campaigns, capitalizing on her oversight of the government’s social programs during the presidency of her then-husband Álvaro Colom, Torres drifted sharply rightward this time, abandoning the social democratic history of her National Unity of Hope party and launching unsubstantiated attacks at Arévalo that she herself suffered during earlier failed campaigns.

Torres picked the capital’s main market as the local heart of her populist pitch, starting and ending her campaign in this hub of commerce. But some vendors there said they see a greater chance for change in Arévalo.

One of them is Enrique Velásquez, who sells thread, yarn and other supplies.

The 29-year-old is part of a youth boom in a country where the average age is 26, compared to 38 in the United States. He hopes an Arévalo administration would generate more confidence in the country’s politics and make real changes rather than just promises.

As for Torres’ attempts to paint Arévalo as a threat to Guatemalan families, Velásquez said that she is really only talking about defending one kind of family, the one with a mother, a father and children. But, he added, there are single mothers and single fathers, grandparents raising grandchildren, divorcees and widows from the country’s violence. “They wouldn’t take those people into account.”

Gays, lesbians and transgender people aren’t trying to influence anyone’s children, he went on. “Times have changed.”

Arévalo told supporters in the capital’s central plaza Wednesday night that misinformation and fearmongering, “is the work of those who don’t want Guatemala to change.”