.
“Giammattei is a trained doctor.” His opponent, “Ms Torres was married to Álvaro Colom, who governed Guatemala from 2008 to 2012, and who is currently under investigation for alleged fraud.…She divorced him in 2011 in order to bypass a law which banned close relatives of the president from succeeding him….She and her party are under investigation for alleged illegal campaign financing during the last election, which she has denied.”
8/12/19, “Conservative Giammattei wins Guatemala elections,“ AP via China Post, Guatemala City
“Conservative Alejandro Giammattei has blazed a long, strange path to Guatemala’s presidency, which he won on his fourth try.
The 63-year-old spent several months in prison in 2008, when he was director of the country’s prison system, after some prisoners were killed in a raid on his watch. He was eventually acquitted of wrongdoing.”…
[The prison in question “had been run by inmates for a decade”: “That same year, he led a controversial operation to take control of the Pavón prison, which had been run by inmates for a decade."]
(continuing): “Until courts prevented some of the more popular
candidates from running in this year’s race, he also appeared to be a
long-shot candidate in a tumultuous campaign season.
But on Sunday, his
get-tough approach to crime and his socially conservative values,
including his strident opposition to gay marriage and abortion, finally
parlayed favor with Guatemalan voters in a presidential runoff.
Leaning on the crutches he uses because of his multiple sclerosis, Giammattei acknowledged in his emotional victory speech that it had been a long road.
“We won. We are very excited, it is logical, it has been 12 years of
struggle,” Giammatttei said. “Twelve years waiting to serve my country.”
With about 98% of polling places reporting, the country’s Supreme Electoral Council said that Giammattei had about 58% of votes, compared to about 42% for former first lady Sandra Torres….
“I just hope Giammattei keeps his promises, and really fights corruption,” said Guatemala City resident Leonel Regalado. “We hope he won’t steal, because that would be too much for him to steal as brazenly as (outgoing President) Jimmy Morales has.”
The presidential campaign was marked by a chaotic succession
of judicial decisions, intrigues, illegal party changes and accusations
of bad practices that truncated the candidacies of two of the three presidential favorites.
Giammattei’s key rival Torres, who had been married and divorced to former President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), focused on improving education, health care and the economy during the campaign. She also proposed an anti-corruption program, but her
Unity for Hope party came under fire because some of its mayoral
candidates were accused of receiving contributions from drug traffickers
for their campaigns.
She became a key contender after Chief Prosecutor Thelma Aldana was barred from the race
on the grounds that she lacked a document certifying that she didn’t
have any outstanding accounts from her time overseeing a public budget
as prosecutor.
Oscar Argueta, secretary-general of the Unity for Hope party, conceded defeat on Sunday.
The new president takes office Jan. 14 and will most immediately face the task of attempting to stem the large flow of migrants headed toward the United States. At least 1% of Guatemala’s population of some 16 million has left the country this year.
On July 6, Morales’ administration signed an agreement with the United States that would require Salvadorans and Hondurans to
request asylum in Guatemala if they cross through the country to reach
the U.S. The new president will have to decide whether to nullify or
honor the agreement, which could potentially ease the crush of migrants arriving at the U.S. border.
In addition to migration, Guatemalans say they are most concerned about entrenched corruption. Three of the last four elected presidents have been arrested after leaving office on charges of graft,
and Morales himself decided to disband and bar a U.N.-supported
anti-corruption commission after he became a target for alleged campaign
finance violations.
“The person who wins will have to lead a country that is viewed as a
nation losing ground in the battle against corruption, because the
mandate of the anti-corruption commission wasn’t renewed,” said Ricardo
Barreno, a political science professor at the Central American Institute
of Political Studies.
Rogelio Estrada, a father of two who was one of the first people to
vote at a polling station in Guatemala City, had other concerns, too.
He hoped the election winner would focus on combatting crime and unemployment “to keep more Guatemalans from going to the United States.”
…………………………………..
Added: BBC article
8/12/19, “Conservative Alejandro Giammattei wins Guatemalan presidency,” BBC
“The conservative has 59%, while his centre-left opponent Sandra Torres has 41%, with 95% of votes counted.
Ex-first lady Ms Torres was running for the third time, while Mr Giammattei was making his fourth attempt.
Guatemalans cited insecurity as their main concern, followed by unemployment, high living costs and corruption….
The president is elected for a single four-year term. Current President Jimmy Morales cannot stand for a second term.
As none of the 19 candidates in the first round held on 16 June got
the 50% of votes needed to win outright, the top two candidates
progressed to a second and final round, with voting held on Sunday.
Alejandro Giammattei will take up office in January 2020.
The 63-year-old candidate stood for the right-wing Vamos (Let’s Go) party and this is his fourth attempt at becoming president. Each time, he has run for a different party.
Mr Giammattei is a trained doctor who was named director of the Guatemalan prison system in 2006.
That same year, he led a controversial operation to take control of the Pavón prison, which had been run by inmates for a decade. Seven inmates died during the raids by the security forces.
Mr Giammattei was among eight people accused over the incident and
after spending 10 months in pre-trial detention, he was acquitted due to
lack of evidence….
He has promised to build
“a wall of prosperity” to keep Guatemalans from migrating to the US. In
order to lessen the disparity between the rich and the poor, he wants to attract more foreign investment to Guatemala by strengthening the protections granted to private property.
The former first lady [Sandra Torres] failed in her two previous attempts to be elected president but won the first round of voting with 26% of the votes.
Ms Torres was married to Álvaro Colom, who governed Guatemala from 2008 to 2012, and who is currently under investigation for alleged fraud.
She divorced
him in 2011 in order to bypass a law which banned close relatives of
the president from succeeding him. At the time she said that “I’m
divorcing my husband but I’m getting married to the people”. She also
said she had found it “very difficult” to leave her “loving marriage” to
Mr Colom.
In the 2011, her candidacy was rejected by the Constitutional Court but she was allowed to run in 2015.
That time, she had enough votes to get her into the second round where
she was defeated by Jimmy Morales by a large margin of almost 35
percentage points.
Ms Torres is running for the social-democratic National Unity of Hope party (UNE). She and her party are under investigation for alleged illegal campaign financing during the last election, which she has denied.
Before the elections, opinion polls suggested Ms Torres was popular
with voters in rural areas of Guatemala because of her former husband’s
social programmes but in urban areas the corruption allegations hit her hard….
Both candidates said they opposed a migration deal signed by outgoing President Jimmy Morales
under which migrants passing through Guatemala en route to the United
States would have to apply for asylum in the former rather than in the
US.
The two candidates argue that Guatemala does not have the capacity to process the asylum requests and even less so to look after the applicants or return them to their home countries if their requests are rejected.”…
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