Guatemalan voters fed up with crime and corruption, including thousands in the U.S., will choose one of 22 presidential candidates, plus legislators.
, a right-wing candidate who is the daughter of Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, who was sentenced to 80 years in prison for massacres in Ixil villages that killed more than 1,770 people during Guatemala’s ruinous and genocidal civil war of 1960-96.Anita Isaacs, a political scientist at Haverford College, said Guatemala’s political establishment has been banking on Ríos’ candidacy.
Street vendor Juan Rodas displays his homemade necklaces and other wares in Guatemala City. Rodas is among disaffected Guatemalan voters who intend to skip the presidential race and cast ballots only for congress and other offices. However, he said, much of Guatemala’s employment still is concentrated in the informal economy, rather than in relatively stable and well-paid jobs, and the country depends heavily on remittances sent by Guatemalans working in foreign countries. The last official estimate, in 2014, was that 55.4% of Guatemalans live below the poverty line. In areas like western Guatemala, where coconut, corn and banana plantations stretch along the highway, many people scrape by at a barely subsistence level.
“Only thanks to the Creator of heaven is it that we eat some tortillas with my wife,” said Maldonado, a graying man of medium height and dark complexion. His house, covered with old pieces of galvanized sheeting, has no electricity because he can’t afford it. “Sometimes we citizens choose the least worst, and he is the one who ends up damaging Guatemala,” she said. “There is the example of the current president.”
Some political analysts say that the political opposition to Guatemala’s establishment parties face innumerable obstacles to gaining power, including internal fissures within left-wing parties that will make it difficult for them to cobble together an alliance that could govern the country.
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