This first round of the Guatemalan elections leaves two data that no survey had anticipated. With 50% of the tally sheets scrutinized, in second place, after Sandra Torres, is the leftist candidate of Semilla, Bernardo Arévalo. Another important fact, the option that got the most voters was not Torres, but the invalid vote with 17%, a sign of the population’s weariness towards their political class. Analysis with Manfredo Marroquín, founder of Transparency International in Guatemala.
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RFI: The great surprise of this first round is the second place obtained by Bernardo Arévalo. Nobody anticipated that he could dispute the second round. How is it explained?
Manfredo Marroquin: It’s a complete surprise and not anticipated by any of the polls. This surprise has its origin in the fact that candidates who had sympathies and preferences and who were seen as anti-system were excluded and somehow the Semilla and Arévalo party were practically alone in that anti-system spectrum and that greatly favored their vote. In addition, the fact that Bernardo Arévalo is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo who made the only period of revolution and democratic spring that has taken place in Guatemala between 1944 and 1954, was already known for being the son of this former president who many consider like the best in Guatemala
RFI: This is the third time that Sandra Torres has tried to be president. Can you stay at the gates again?
Manfredo Marroquin: It is possible that this will happen again because the candidate Torres concentrates a gigantic anti-vote. Polls show that 45% of voters say they would vote for her under no circumstances. That already, from the outset, makes her loser in a second round because her ceiling is limited, she would have to get votes from those anti-votes and that is very difficult. So, it is very likely that the same thing that happened four and eight years ago will repeat itself. So the one with the most options is Mr. Arévalo.
RFI: There has been a high abstention rate, 43% of voters did not go to vote. Does it have to do with the disenchantment of citizens towards the political class?
Manfredo Marroquin: There is another very important fact and it is that of the invalid vote, which is the option that came first. The null vote has 17%, the candidate Torres has almost 15% and Arévalo, 12%. If you add to that the blank votes of 7%, that option got 24%. That added to the abstention. What we see is a total rejection of the system. A system that has been dominated by what here in Guatemala is known as the corrupt pact, which is a group of really very corrupt politicians whose agenda was enrichment and generating impunity and that caused enormous fatigue in the population, a fatigue that it was hidden because the polls did not reflect it. To me it makes a comparison to what happened in 1990 in Nicaragua when the Sandinistas lost (Violeta Chamorro won) and no survey had reflected that intention of radical change that the population wanted, fed up with the system that offers them nothing.
RFI: This Sunday there were riots and accusations of fraud, this is added to an electoral period that was plagued by quite complex episodes, such as the exclusion of candidates from the lists, what is expected of this ballot and the electoral environment?
Manfredo Marroquin: As a result of the high level of corruption in the country and the permissibility and impunity that exists towards power groups, there is a lot of money flowing into politics, which translates into buying votes and clientelism. That is why there were incidents, because people protested against the buying of votes, because voters moved from one municipality to another to vote for candidates, especially pro-government supporters. Having these millions, the official candidate barely got 7%. I think that this phenomenon is going to diminish in this second round, although it is not going to disappear because Mrs. Torres also concentrates a lot on that. With Arévalo at the helm, surely the people are going to opt for him because the people are very fed up with buying votes. I think that this will be reduced in the second round.
RFI: How is this second round presented with respect to campaign issues?
Manfredo Marroquin: The first issue is that people are fed up with these last eight years of corrupt governments. I think that much of the agenda will be resumed from when the CICIG (International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala) was there, the three powers of the state were taken over by the corrupt pact. If Arévalo wins, I hope he dismantles this corrupt pact at the institutional level and stops the persecution and the closing of spaces for activists, journalists, justice operators, many of them in exile, paying for having done their job of investigating corruption. . In the region, it is one of the few countries in which corruption continues to be the main issue of concern.
