The candidate Bernardo Arévalo de León, of the Seed Movement, is the virtual winner of the presidency of Guatemala with 82% of the votes counted.
The academic Arévalo de León, 64, leads the ballot with 2.2 million votes (59%) obtained from the more than 3 million digitized so far by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Guatemala.
Meanwhile, Sandra Torres Casanova, from the National Unity of Hope (UNE), adds 1.3 million votes (35%) of the preliminary results.
Guatemala carried out this Sunday the second round of its electoral process to decide who would be its next president for the period 2024-208. During the day, a detonation of a homemade bomb was reported in a voting center. However, the police reported that they captured the suspect. The incident left no one injured or dead.
The Seed Movement candidate was the surprise in the first electoral round, sneaking into second place when the polls placed him in eighth position and he was the favorite to win the ballot, since the polls gave him between 60 and 65 percent of the total of the votes
Torres Casanova, for his part, won the first electoral round on June 20 with almost 900,000 votes, but the polls suggest that he will fall short again in his intentions to reach the presidency.
Guatemalans went to the polls in an atmosphere of maximum tension, since the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) of Guatemala, whose leadership is sanctioned by the United States authorities for corruption, has become the protagonist by force of the elections.
(Also read: Elections in Ecuador: keys to voting this weekend)
Since Semilla’s runoff run last June, the Prosecutor’s Office has sought to stop Arévalo’s candidacy for an alleged case of false signatures. However, Semilla’s lawyers have not been allowed access to the file and the accusations are increasingly contradictory, according to various experts.
(You may be interested in: Family of Fernando Villavicencio denounces Lasso for murder by omission)
The Seed Movement and other sectors have sounded the alarm that there may be attempts to sabotage the election this Sunday through problems at the polling stations, violent polling officers, illegal challenges, or any other type of attack.
Follow live the electoral day in which the president of Guatemala will be elected for the period 2024-2028, whose scrutiny has already started
Arevalo, president-elect
The candidate Bernardo Arévalo de León, of the Seed Movement, is the elected president of the presidency of Guatemala.
The scrutiny advances
With 82% of the voting tables accounted for, according to the official count of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Arévalo reaps 59% of the votes while his rival, former first lady Sandra Torres, 36%.
Arévalo accumulates 2,045,627 votes, while Torres is left with 1,218,886 votes.
Arévalo leads the scrutiny
Academic Bernardo Arévalo de León leads the vote count in the Guatemalan presidential election, with 25 percent of the votes counted.
According to data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Arévalo has received 450,000 votes (55%), while her opponent, Sandra Torres, accumulates 331,000 (39%).
polls close
At this time, the voting centers close in Guatemala and the counting begins,
Incident at polling station
The Guatemalan National Civil Police (PNC) captured an individual who detonated a homemade explosive inside a voting center, located in the west of the Central American country.
The homemade bomb was detonated inside a school in the municipality of Mixco, near Guatemala City, which works this Sunday as an electoral center, according to data from the Municipal Fire Department.
The majority of voting centers opened punctually and without inconvenience
99.6% of the electoral centers in Guatemala opened on time and without problems today for the celebration of the second electoral round for the presidency.
The information was released at a press conference by the unofficial Electoral Observation Mission of Guatemala, made up of a group of social and civil organizations.
The day progresses normally
Guatemalans have voted calmly this Sunday to elect a new president. The almost 3,500 voting centers function normally, without any incident being reported, according to the OAS observer mission.
Torres casts his vote and calls for “honesty” in the electoral process
The candidate Sandra Torres cast her vote for the presidency of Guatemala and asked for “honesty” in the electoral process where she faces the academic Bernardo Arévalo.
Torres appeared at the voting center where he was supposed to cast his vote, in a residential area in the southeast of Guatemala City. He asked for “honesty” in the electoral process due to some “anomalies that we have been denouncing,” according to what he indicated in brief statements to journalists.
Arévalo, leader in the polls, casts his vote
Guatemalan presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo De León, who leads the voting intention according to last week’s polls, cast his ballot this Sunday in the historic center of the capital of the Central American nation.
“Guatemalans, this is the time to vote with joy, let’s go vote early,” said Arévalo de León, after voting this Sunday at La Patria College, located in the center of Guatemala City.
Guatemala electoral court magistrate could resign on Tuesday
The magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Guatemala, Blanca Alfaro, said that she could resign from her post on Tuesday, after today’s run-off for the presidency.
“Right now I am making a very personal evaluation and I am going to talk about it with my family. I consider that my function extends until this election,” said Alfaro. “I am considering submitting to Congress (my resignation) and submitting to any trial under investigation as an ordinary citizen,” he added.
Voting centers open in Guatemala
The Guatemalan voting centers opened their doors this Sunday for election day, in which the Central American country will decide its next president for the period 2024-2028.
At 7 am local time (8 am Colombia time), as scheduled, entry to the almost 3,500 voting centers where 9.3 million Guatemalans are registered to vote was enabled.
Who are the candidates?
Bernardo Arevalo
The sociologist and congressman Bernardo Arévalo is the son of President Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951), who left his mark on the country. On his back lies the legacy of his father, the country’s first democratic president after decades of dictatorships, who ended the 13-year term of caudillo Jorge Ubico, an admirer of Hitler who subjected Mayan indigenous people to forced labor.
He was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1958 due to his father’s exile. Bernardo Arévalo, 64, also lived in Venezuela, Mexico and Chile before arriving in Guatemala at the age of 15.
He studied sociology in Israel, was Vice Chancellor in 1994-1995 and Ambassador to Spain between 1995 and 1996, during the government of the late President Ramiro de León Carpio. He is running for the presidency for the first time. He is a candidate for the Semilla party and promises to follow in his father’s footsteps to lift 60 percent of Guatemala’s 17.6 million people out of poverty.
Sandra Torres
Sandra Torres is the ex-wife of the late Social Democratic President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), who supported the CICIG, an entity endorsed by the UN that operated as a parallel prosecutor’s office and uncovered notorious cases of corruption between 2007 and 2019.
Torres was born on October 5, 1955 in the northern municipality of Melchor de Mencos. She has a degree in Communication and a textile businesswoman. She was the founder of the National Unity of Hope (UNE), a center-left party that brought Colom to power. and that she now leads with an iron hand.
In 2003, she married Colom, but divorced him in 2011 in order to compete for the presidency and not violate the constitutional rule that prevents close relatives of incumbent leaders from being candidates.
Torres lost the second ballot to Jimmy Morales in 2015 and to the current president Alejandro Giammattei in 2019, who is due to step down on January 14, 2024.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
#Live #Bernardo #Arévalo #winner #presidency #Guatemala