Bernardo Arevalo Victory Is a Turning Point for Guatemala
By Jeff Abbott
August 23, 2023
Source: The Progressive
Progressive social democrat César Bernardo Arévalo de León of the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement Party) won the runoff election for Guatemala’s presidency on August 20, a surprising result that few could have predicted before the first round of voting on June 25. Arévalo previously served in Guatemala’s congress, and his father was the country’s first democratically-elected president in the mid-1940s. His success represents a historic victory, especially in a country that has seen a recent rollback of democratic institutions.
“[The election of Arévalo] means there is social support for the fight against corruption,” Gabriela Carrera, a political science professor at the Guatemalan Rafael Landivar University, tells The Progressive.
On August 20, 45 percent of registered voters turned out to participate in one of the most important presidential elections since the country returned to democracy in 1985 after decades of military rule. Arévalo won 58.01 percent of the vote while his opponent, Sandra Torres, a sixty-seven-year-old businesswoman and former first lady from the right-leaning National Unity of Hope Party (UNE), earned around 37 percent.
The 2023 electoral process was marred by irregularities and concerns, with many analysts and members of the international community expressing alarm around it. These concerns were amplified due to a campaign of revenge carried out by the far right against journalists, prosecutors, investigators, and judges who were involved in anti-corruption efforts that came out of investigations by the now defunct United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG), which was forced to close in September 2019.
The president-elect has promised to crack down on corruption and break up monopolies, a welcome sign in a country gripped by a wealthy elite.
More:
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bernardo-arevalo-victory-is-a-turning-point-for-guatemala/