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A centre-left anti-corruption candidate is set to win Guatemala’s presidency, as voters expressed anger at the political establishment’s failure to tackle graft in Central America’s largest economy.
Bernardo Arévalo, a former diplomat, was on track to beat former first lady Sandra Torres on Sunday evening, securing 59 per cent of the vote compared with 37 per cent for Torres with than 95 per cent of ballots counted, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
Arévalo, 64, shocked Guatemala’s conservative political class by placing second in the first round of voting in June, securing him a spot against Torres in the run-off.
The ruling party and its allies challenged the result of the first round. Prosecutors have since opened several legal cases against his Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement) party, in what rights groups and foreign governments see as an illegitimate attempt to interfere with the result. Arévalo painted Sunday’s vote as a referendum on Guatemala’s fragile democracy.
Analysts are now braced for a tense transition and possibly new efforts to block Arévalo from taking office or governing effectively. Torres had not conceded on Sunday evening, but outgoing conservative president Alejandro Giammattei congratulated Arévalo and said he was ready for the transition once the results were finalised.
Guatemalan voters were attracted to the self-described social democrat’s anti-corruption message. Arévalo’s party grew out of widespread protests in 2015, known as the “Guatemalan spring”, over political corruption exposed by the UN-backed investigative body Cicig. The government abruptly shut the body in 2019.
Dozens of former prosecutors, judges and journalists have fled the country or been imprisoned, including one of the most famous media figures José Rubén Zamora. The attorney-general is under US sanctions for corruption.
“I think most Guatemalans are fed up with a broken political class,” said Will Freeman, a Latin America fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The distinguishing thing about Arévalo is not that he’s moderate, radical, centre-left, left . . . its actually that he’s just an outsider and that he and his party have not built alliances with any of these other tainted factions.”
The son of a popular former president, Arévalo has promised to create a National Anti-Corruption System, a more meritocratic civil service and to digitise public services. He also said he would reduce tax evasion and consider public-private partnerships for infrastructure.
Despite his popular mandate and international support, Arévalo will face an uphill battle in governing, analysts said. His party will also only have 23 of 160 seats in Congress, forcing it to form a coalition or forge alliances to pass legislation. Prosecutors are also pursuing a legal case against the party that, if successful, could lead to its members being barred from holding certain positions in the legislature.
“It’s likely we will have new challenges or questioning of the election results,” said Eduardo Nuñez, director of the National Democratic Institute in Guatemala. Whether Arévalo can secure support from social movements and the private sector will prove critical, added Nuñez.
Guatemala’s economy is expected to grow 3.2 per cent this year, according to UN projections. Highly conservative fiscal management means its stock of public debt is less than 30 per cent of gross domestic product, though foreign investment has languished below 2 per cent.
Juan Carlos Zapata, director of private sector-linked think-tank Fundesa, said the next government should focus on attracting investment by resolving bottlenecks in infrastructure, skills and the rule of law.
“With Arévalo’s party under investigation, it will be imperative that actions are not taken against him or his party as a type of political retribution,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
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