More than 9.3 million Guatemalans were called to the polls this Sunday on election day to elect their next president between the progressive sociologist Bernardo Arévalo, of the Seed Movement, and former first lady Sandra Torres, of the National Unity of the Esperanza (UNE), which has swung from social democracy to more conservative positions in her third attempt to become president.
The influx to the 3,500 polling stations has been constant and has occurred with relative calm from 7 in the morning local time until 6 in the afternoon on a day in which many Guatemalans have the feeling that it is a different election because of the unexpected rise of the Seed Movement, a party born in the heat of the 2015 anti-corruption protests that challenges traditional ways of doing politics.
The candidate for the presidency of that party, the deputy Bernardo Arévalo, who, according to the latest polls, enjoys a 30-point advantage over his rival, voted before 9 in the morning at Colegio La Patria, located in the center of Guatemala City, where he entered surrounded by a swarm of journalists and gathered by representatives of Semilla, members of his campaign and some followers who applauded him and shouted “Future president” and Long live Arévalo!”
“Guatemalans: this is the time to vote with joy, let’s go vote early,” Arévalo urged after casting his vote with his wife. “Today, like many Guatemalan families, we are hopeful that a better future is coming. May democracy triumph today, ”he wrote on his X social network account, in a message that was accompanied by photos that showed him having breakfast with his family. After casting his vote, he accompanied his mother to his polling place.
Also around 9 in the morning, Sandra Torres voted in a residential area in the southeast of Guatemala City and called for “honesty” in the electoral process after insisting on her denunciation of “anomalies” in the process. “We are going to wait for the results with the team, with the game, as we have always said, close to the people”, said the UNE candidate. A group of merchants from the La Terminal market, one of Torres’ strongest supporters in the capital, arrived at her polling station and presented her with a bouquet of flowers.
The former first lady has insisted in recent days on stirring up the specters of fraud, without offering proof, and has questioned the system and even the work of the citizens who voluntarily oversee the process at the vote reception boards or who transmit the data digitally. In most of these complaints, the UNE candidate has echoed investigations by a questioned Public Ministry that, among other things, has unsuccessfully tried to cancel the legal status of the Arévalo party.
The Electoral Observation Mission (MOE-GT) reported that all the centers opened on time and that, until noon, they had not reported relevant incidents. The observers of that mission deployed in all departments reported that “the commissioning of the polling stations was carried out efficiently and peacefully.” According to reports, in 96% of the polling stations there is a presence of prosecutors from the National Unity of Hope and in 82% of the Seed Movement.
“We are going to have a historic result”
The deputy of that party Samuel Pérez, one of those who accompanied Arévalo to vote in Guatemala City, assured that the party had managed to go from 500 prosecutors to 19,000 “willing to defend democracy.” However, they will not be able to have them at all the tables, especially in areas far from the north of the country, according to his colleague Román Castellanos, another of the 23 deputies that the party will have in the new Congress. “We are going to have a historic result rarely seen in the political history of Guatemala,” Pérez said optimistically in statements to EL PAÍS.
Attempts to remove Semilla from the campaign by court orders or to challenge the process reveal that the unexpected rise of the party is not being welcomed by traditional political elites. That raises fears of possible challenges after vote counting begins at 6 this afternoon. Faced with this possibility, Samuel Pérez assures that both the Seed Movement and the citizens are willing to fight to defend their votes.
“We have been prepared from the moment they tried to challenge the registration of the party four years ago, so we have come with a political persecution on the part of the Public Ministry and all the actors of the corruption and impunity regime,” Pérez said. “That is everyday for us. We have no fear. We are ready. The legal teams are ready and I think the people of Guatemala are ready too.”
Even the school where Bernardo Arévalo voted was approached by Rebeca Sánchez, a lawyer who came with her family to support who they want to be the next president of Guatemala. “We feel like this is the first time that we are voting out of conviction because we believe in and want change. We come with great enthusiasm and great hope that there will be a change of government and that the entire system will begin to change,” the woman who says she has supported Semilla for more than four years told EL PAÍS because she considers it an option without ties to the traditional politics and transparent financing. “It will not be easy after almost 70 years that we have lived under dictatorships, governed by corruption, by rapacious elites who have their boots on our necks, but we have a lot of hope.”
“We are tired of this, we hope in God that it really is a change, because we are desperate,” added his mother, the economist Blanca Ralda. “He is the son of the best president Guatemala has ever had. We are hopeful,” Arévalo said in reference. His father, Juan José Arévalo, ruled Guatemala between 1945 and 1951.
In another part of the capital, in a neighborhood in zone 6 of the Guatemalan capital, Marcelo Rojas, one of the managers of the La Terminal market, went to vote early, with his family, for Sandra Torres: “We have hope in her and her ideology”, she said, defining her as a woman “of her word” who supported the merchants with sheets after the fires in some areas of the market of which she is the leader.
Turnout at the polls was estimated to be between 20% and 30% at the stroke of noon, according to Guatemala Visible, an organization that monitors the process. “It seems that we have a good election day,” said its president Jorge Eskenasy to local media.
Shortly before 5 in the afternoon, when there was still an hour left until the polls closed, Sandra Torres held a press conference in which she asked for transparency in the results and urged Guatemalans to vote since, according to what she said, the reports of his campaign indicated a lower turnout than in previous elections. For their part, several legislators and members of the Semilla campaign announced at another conference that they had filed a criminal complaint for an irregularity registered in San Antonio La Paz, in the department of El Progreso, where, according to what they said, three women were arrested for hand out cards with the logo of the UNE party in exchange for food, in what appears to be a patronage practice.
Electoral magistrates denounce threats
The second presidential election began at 7:00 a.m. with a public ceremony at the polling station set up in Erick Barrondo Park, in the Guatemalan capital. At the end of the inauguration of the voting, one of the magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal suspended the day. “I am considering resigning” as of Tuesday, after the second round, Blanca Alfaro said. The magistrate suspects that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has some accusation against her, for which she would leave her position to avoid the work involved in the process of waiving immunity. “Jail doesn’t kill,” she said with concern.
Alfaro is one of the five titular magistrates of the TSE. Days before the first round, The New York Times revealed that Judge Alfaro denounced before the United States Embassy the delivery of bribes by the team of President Alejandro Giammattei.
On Saturday night, Alfaro denounced that she and her fellow magistrate Vladimir Aguilar received threats by text message. This Sunday, Giammattei announced that the police have already identified where the phone was purchased from where the threats were issued.
Like the magistrates, other electoral officials have been subjected to pressure during the elections. The Public Ministry has opened 13 investigations related to the electoral process, which, among others, reach data entry workers and members of the electoral boards and boards receiving votes.
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