Campaign Commercials in Guatemala

Given all the polls leaning in it favor, Otto Perez Molina and the Patriotic Party are looking to score a first round victory in September's election. Since the country's return to civilian government in the 1980s, no candidate has ever secured a first round victory. Alfonso Portillo of the FRG is the only candidate to have come close. He captured a first round 48% and eventually defeated Oscar Berger 68% to 32% in a second round.

Here's how Perez Molina is winning with slick campaign commercials about the Guatemala that he wants.



You can check out El Periodico for other campaign commercials including Juan Gutierrez' talking fish.

The Vote for the Guatemalan Congress

On September 11, Guatemalans will also go to the polls to elect its 158-member Congress. Voters mark two ballots in order to elect members of congress - one for the national list and one for the department in which they live. There are 31 seats available from the national list and another 127 seats from the country's departments and Guatemala City.

Here is what the composition of the congress looked like since September 2007 and as of today..

In Vox Latina and Siglo XXI's most recent survey, respondents were asked for which political party they would vote in the upcoming elections. Here's the breakdown in the likely vote for each party.

• PP - 21.2%
• UNE-GANA - 11.2%
• CREO - 7.1%
• Lider - 5.9%
• Viva - 5.3%
• UCN - 1.7%
• Unionista - 0.9%
• PAN - 0.5%
• ADN - 0.3%
• Winaq - 0.2%

One of the interesting things for me here is that the PP only gets 21% of the vote even though 40% of the public is likely to support its presidential candidate. I'm not sure if that speaks more highly of its candidate or poorly of the overall party.

Given the support for each party, the folks at Siglo XXI then distributed the 31 seats from the national list to the winning parties using the D'Hondt method.

• PP - 13
• UNE-GANA -7
• CREO - 4
• Lider - 3
• Viva - 3
• UCN - 1
• Unionista - 0 
• PAN - 0 
• ADN - 0
• Winaq - 0

Otto Perez Molina's Patriotic Party is likely to pick up an addition 13 seats in addition to whatever they win at the department level. Alvaro Colom's party and its ally are likely to pick up 7. 

In order for some of the smaller parties to win their remainder seats from the national list (Lider, Viva, UCN), they'll either have to win a seat outright from any single department or attain at least 4% of the national vote. Somewhat disappointingly, the Unionista, PAN, ADN and Winaq (Frente Amplio) aren't likely to win a seat from the national list even if they somehow attain 4% of the vote or win a department seat outright. 

Now these numbers are just estimates so I wouldn't get too worked up about these numbers. Forty-six percent of those surveyed said that they would not vote for any of the parties listed. These people may or may not vote on election day. 

The candidates for UNE-GANA and Viva-EG are, as of today, not on the ballot. If their candidates don't appear on the ballot, I would venture to guess that their supporters will either stay home or vote for parties other than the PP. That's likely to help the smaller, leftist political parties like the Frente Amplio / Winaq. 

Plus we don't really have a good idea as to how each party is going to do in each department. These 31 seats only come from the national list. Another 127 seats have to come from each department's vote. Given that six parties performed well enough to pick up these remainder seats, I would say that that extreme fragmentation in the Guatemalan congress is not likely to go away in the next few months.

Murder in San José Pinula

Citizen Action is calling on Guatemalan electoral authorities to suspend the campaign in San José Pinula because of the recent attacks against three of the town's mayoral candidates. Augusto Enrique Ovalle Barrera (Uninionist Party) was shot and killed on Saturday, June 11. Enrique Dardon (CREO) was shot and killed on Thursday, June 16. And on Saturday, Luis Marroquin (LIDER) was shot and injured. A fouth candidate, Mario Solares (Patriotic Party), has received death threats and has had his property vandalized multiple times. Therefore, while he is going to remain on the ballot, he is suspending his campaign.

According to Citizen Action, the Electoral Act permits the suspension of a campaign in the event of sabotage or destruction. The recent violence in San José Pinula has sabotaged the fairness of the campaign and disrupted the climate of peace. Therefore, the campaign should be suspended until the state captures and prosecutes those responsible for the recent shootings. 

According to the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, 26 candidates and campaign workers have been murdered and another 15 injured since campaigning officially began on May 4. Twenty-seven have also reported having received death threats.

Sixty-eight candidates and campaign workers were murdered during the 2007 campaign. Everyone expected this year's campaign to be just as dangerous if not more so. It's too early to tell if 2011 will in fact be more violent, but it is clearly shaping up to be another violent campaign season.

Guatemala's Minor Parties

Last month we took a look at some of the major parties in Guatemala. Out of the twenty-six parties legally registered to run in September, seven political parties captured over five per cent of the presidential or legislative vote in the 2007 election and I basically characterized as major political parties. It's not a perfect schema, but it's a start.

Minor parties, then, are those that participated in the last election but captured less than five per cent of the vote. We have four minor parties using that simple cutoff and two of the four are Guatemala's equivalent to El Salvador's ARENA and FMLN.

First, there is the National Advancement Party (PAN), the country's oldest party founded in 1989. Alvaro Arzu, formerly of the PAN and now of the Unionist Party, was president of the country during the signing of the historic peace accords.

The PAN had hoped to be El Salvador’s ARENA – a party to represents the country’s capitalist class. However, the PAN failed in that regard and its failure is one reason why so many political parties exist today as wealthy businessmen either found their own political party or throw their support behind one of the many existing parties. In the 2007 election, just about every vice presidential candidate was a wealthy businessman.

Juan Gutierrez is this year's PAN presidential candidate, but he has not been doing well in the polls. Gutierrez came in at 1.1% in May's Prensa Libre poll. There’s not much going on there. The PAN did have three members reelected to congress in 2007. However, it has been down to two congressmen since June 2010.

Then there’s the Democratic Union (UD) which was founded in 1993. It had one deputy, Edwin Armando Martínez Herrera, reelected in 2007.

After three-plus decades of war (about fifteen as a single entity), the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG) was officially inscribed as a political party in 1998 and competed for the first time in 1999. It had two members elected to congress in 2007, including one from the national list and one from Huehuetenango. 

In 2011, the URNG is competing as part of the Frente Amplio. They are supporting Nobel-laureate Rigoberta Menchu for president. Menchu is the leader of the Winaq party, one of the groups comprising the Frente. She performed poorly in 2007 (3%) and is likely to perform poorly again this year (polling at a steady 1.5%). Given the poor resources with which the Guatemalan left has to work with, Menchu is now connecting to Guatemalans by riding public buses.

While the Frente Amplio wasn’t going to make much of a splash in the presidential election anyway, I don’t find Menchu’s selection that inspiring. I don't know that she brings anyone new to the party. Menchu, however, said she was going to be a presidential candidate this year and if the Frente Amplio didn’t select her, Winaq probably would not have participated in the leftist alliance. At a minimum, her candidacy will get the Frente a good amount of national and international media coverage, the lack of which the left has complained about in the past.

Finally, the National Change Union (UCN) counts four members of congress after having five elected in 2007. The UCN is going with Mario Estrada for the presidency. However, he’s only polling at about 2% of the vote. After former president Alfonso Portillo’s acquittal, Estrada offered him a place within the UCN in the upcoming election. That surely would have helped Estrada and the UCN’s campaign had Portillo accepted.

Of the four, the URNG probably has the best chance to break out in 2011 - but by that I mean doubling its seat total to four or maybe even five. 

May Poll Numbers in San Salvador

Two years into Mauricio Funes' five-year term in office, 65% of San Salvador's residents approve of the job that he is doing.* Fifty-eight per cent characterize his administration's performance as "good" and 7% as "very good." On the other hand, 27% say that Funes is doing a "very bad" job and 7% a "very bad" job (Funes recibe apoyo del 65% de la población).

Sixty per cent also say that they do not believe that the FMLN and Funes are resolving the country's problems. If that's the case, it's truly surprising that Funes' approval numbers have remain so high. I don't know for sure but Salvadorans might be comparing his performance to that of former President Tony Saca or to what might have happened had ARENA's candidate been elected. 

In that sense, Funes isn't doing a great job tackling the country's economic and crime problems but he is doing a better job than his predecessor and to anyone else who might have been elected in 2009. Either way, unless country conditions improve, it's hard to imagine his high approval numbers lasting for the next three years. That's not good for him or the FMLN heading up to the 2014 presidential elections. 

While Funes has his job for another 3 years, the country's mayors and members of congress stand for reelection in March 2012. Nine months out from the elections, the FMLN maintains a slight lead over ARENA. Twenty-seven percent of those polled indicated that they would vote for the FMLN if mayoral elections were held tomorrow while 25% would vote for ARENA. Thirty per cent said that they did not know for whom they would vote (FMLN y ARENA en cerrada lucha).

Approximately 10% said that they did not plan on voting. That leaves another 10% split among the remaining political parties. In mayoral elections, GANA has the support of 4.2%. While it remains unclear whether the PCN or the PDC will be allowed to participate in the March elections, neither is likely to make much of a splash. The two parties combined received 6% of the public's support (PCN - 3.6% and PDC - 2.4%). The CD and a generic independent candidate both receive 0.1%.

In terms of the Legislative Assembly, the FMLN's lead is more significant. Twenty-eight per cent said that they would vote for the FMLN if the elections were held tomorrow while 21% chose ARENA.  The survey results are roughly the same for congressional elections (GANA - 4.5%; PCN - 3%; PDC - 2%). 

Today's newspaper focus on Funes' high approval numbers is masking what appears to be a highly vulnerable FMLN heading into next year's elections. Given the problems in ARENA and the high approval numbers for President Funes during the last two years, I am a bit surprised that the distance between the FMLN and ARENA in voting intention isn't greater. In fact, while not entirely comparable, the FMLN's advantage over ARENA has declined in recent months (Poll Numbers in El Salvador). The FMLN used to have a 10 point advantage in voter intention for congress and 6 points for mayors. It's now at 7 and 2 points respectively. That can't be good heading in to the summer months. 

*The survey was carried out by JBS Opinión Pública for El Diario de Hoy during the week of May 14-18, 2011. The survey has a margin of error is +/-3.5% and a level of confidence of 97.5%. The survey was carried out among 1,193 residents of San Salvador. While San Salvador is the capital and comprises nearly 50% of the country's population, it's not a nationwide poll and shouldn't be taken as such.

Discord in the Frente Amplio

Last week, the Frente Nacional de Lucha (FNL) abandoned the leftist Frente Amplio de Izquierda. The FNL is one of the country's workers' federations. The Tzuk Kim Pop Movement of Quetzaltenango also withdrew from the alliance. Among the reasons given by both groups was their disagreement with the Frente's decision to nominate Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú for president. Menchú has never been as popular in Guatemala as she has been outside the country.


Meanwhile, the New Republic Movement's member of congress as well as Menchú's running mate, Aníbal García, is one of 24 members of congress who definitely will not be returning to office after September's election.

New Poll Numbers in Guatemala

Siglo 21 and Vox Latina released poll numbers today. This is Siglo XXI and Vox Latina's first presidential poll for the 2011 election. 1,200 surveys were carried out in both urban and rural areas of Guatemala between April 25 and May 1. The survey has a margin of error of 3.8%.

According to their polling, the Patriotic Party's (PP) Otto Perez Molina holds a 16.5 point advantage over the National Unity for Hope's (UNE) Sandra Torres. Thirty-seven per cent of those surveyed stated that they would vote for Perez Molina while 21% preferred Torres. Twenty per cent of those polled were undecided.

Depending on how the undecideds break and what else happens over the next four months, there is a good chance that a second round will be needed to decide the election. When Guatemalans were asked whether they would vote for Perez Molina or Torres in a second round, 55% chose the general and only 18% chose Torres.

In terms of the breakdown of each candidate's support, Torres did better among Guatemalans living in the center of the country and among those with with no education. Her numbers are also better among those on the lower end of the economic scale, particularly among those who earn less than 2k quetzal per month. Torres does better among those between the ages of 36 and 55 and worse among those between 18 and 35 years of age. Torres also does better among the indigenous than Garifuna.

Perez Molina has greater support in the north and among those with a secondary level of education. He also performs better among those who earn more than 4k quetzal per month. He polls stronger among those 18 to 35 and weaker among those 56 years of age and older. Perez Molina also does better among the Garifuna than among the country's indigenous
Finally, Perez has 39% and Torres 19% of the ladino's voting intentions.

Manuel Baldizón of LIDER and Eduardo Suger of CREO are in the best position should the courts block Torres's candidacy. Baldizón's (6.8%) support is a little higher than Suger's (6.5%), but statistically there's no difference. Borge y Asociados' previous polls for El Periodico also had Baldizón ahead of Suger as of their April survey though the margin was greater.

Here are the remaining candidates: Harold Caballeros (Viva-EG) is at 4.6%. Zury Rios of the FGR has 1.6%. Rigoberta Menchu of the Frente Amplio has 1.3%. Finally, Mario Estrada (UCN), Juan Gutierrez of the PAN, and Adela de Torrebiarte of the ADN all come in with less than 1% support.

This poll is just another indication that the race is between Otto Perez Molina and Sandra Torres. It's possible that Perez Molina will win in a first round on September 11, but that's by no means certain. CREO and LIDER should be happy with these recent poll numbers. Their presidential candidates are in a good position should Torers be disqualified and, more importantly perhaps, their "strong" support might help elect a few more deputies to congress for each party.

Major Parties in Guatemala

Guatemala has twenty-six parties legally registered to compete in September's elections. I've just simplistically divided the twenty-six parties into three categories for now.

In the major party category, we have those seven parties that captured at least five per cent of the vote in either the 2007 legislative or executive election.

The Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) is the oldest party of the bunch, having been officially inscribed in 1990. It currently counts 7 members in the 158-member congress. General Efrain Rios Montt's daughter Zury Rios is the FRG's candidate.

2002 was a good year for Guatemala's political parties as four of those that were created that year each captured at least 5 percent of the legislative or executive vote in 2007.

The Patriotic Party (PP) currently maintains 33 members of congress and now has its sights set on the presidency. The Grand National Alliance (GANA) has 17 and the National Unity for Hope (UNE) has 40 members of congress. GANA and UNE are running Sandra Torres and Roberto Diaz-Duran for the presidency and look to be the PP's toughest competition.


Finally, the Unionist Party is the fourth to have been created in 2002. Mrs. Arzu is its presidential candidate while Mr. Arzu is running for re-election to the post of mayor of Guatemala City. Finally, Social Action Center (CASA). The party only counts two members of congress. As of a few weeks ago, Carlos Zúñiga was its presidential candidate. However, he jumped ship and was recently chosen as the PAN's vice presidential candidate.


And the final major party is Nineth Montenegro's Encounter for Guatemala (EG). Aside from Nineth, there's well...Well, there's Nineth. The EG is running alongside Vision with Values (VIVA). 


Just twenty more to go.

PDC and PCN are No More

On Friday, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in El Salvador ordered the country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to disband both the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the National Conciliation Party. The CJS declared that both the PDC and the PCN should have been disbanded after the 2004 presidential election.(Yahoo)

In the PCN's case, it captured 2.71% of the presidential vote, less than the 3% mandated by Salvadoran electoral laws. The PDC, on the other hand, ran in a coalition with the United Democratic Center (CDU). The PDC-CDU candidate captured 3.9% of the vote, falling short of the 6% threshold coalition participants need to survive.

The court also declared part of January 19, 2005's Legislative Decree No. 586, unconstitutional. This legislative decree kept the PCN and PDC alive even though neither had not surpassed the minimum vote. The court maintained, unsurprisingly, that it was unconstitutional to legislate retroactively. Neither party can appeal the ruling. (Contrapunto, El Nuevo Herald)

The court stated that the PDC and the PCN are free to compete in the 2012 elections. However, just like every other new political party, each must collect 50,000 signatures and meet all the requirements for new political parties of Salvadoran electoral laws. Analysts say that it takes parties three-to-four months to fulfill the requirements making the mid-November deadline for next year's election tight.

The PCN was formed by military officials and PDC dissidents in 1961. The military ruled through the PCN for the next twenty years until the PDC, founded in 1945, began to "rule" as part of the US-backed counterinsurgency campaign in the 1980s. Today, both parties are shells of their former selves as the PDC has 2 representatives and the PCN 10 in the current Legislative Assembly.

I think that it's a little early to tell, but the analysts that ContraPunto spoke to believe that GANA is the big winner here. If the PDC/PCN 2009 votes were protest votes (as in anybody but the FMLN or ARENA), sure GANA will most likely pick up those votes. However, the PCN and ARENA have always (for the most part) been close and it wouldn't be unreasonable for the PCN's supporters to switch to ARENA. With regards to the PDC, several of their current officials are former FMLN and it's also possible that their supporters will vote FMLN in 2012. They might support GANA, but it's probably a little too early to tell.

Another possible beneficiary of the decision is Funes. The court's ruling has to affect Mauricio Funes and his supporters' calculations as they decide whether to transform the "Citizens Movement for Change” into an official political party and run candidates in either 2012 or 2014.

(What do you think Christine?)

Guatemalan Mayoral Candidate Killed

The Guatemalan Human Rights Office recently released a report warning that 42% of the country's municipalities (140 out of 333) are likely to suffer election violence this year. Sixty percent of the country's municipalities (201) will suffer from criminal violence and organized crime.

A TSE worker was killed in January, a former congressman in December, and a mayor in November. However, things have gotten worse this weekend.

On Saturday afternoon, eight people were killed in an attack on Mayra Lemus, a mayoral candidate for the UNE-GANA ticket in Moyuta, Jutiapa (on the southern border with El Salvador). The armed men came for him while he was dining in a restaurant.

Authorities are obviously investigating political motivations behind Mayra Lemus' attack. Her brother and former mayor of Mayuta, 48-year old Magno Lemus Pérez, apparently died of a suspicious heart attack in October 2009. It doesn't look like anyone thought much about it until his name popped up on wiretaps related to the Rosenberg murder. Magno's name was found on a list of people to be killed.

While not related to election violence, gunmen also shot and killed the vice-president of a last-place soccer team in the country's national league. Authorities are investigating death threats that the man received several weeks ago after his team's poor performance.

Guatemala's Political Parties

Prensa Libre published two interesting articles in the last few days that relate to the upcoming September elections. In the first one, Francisco Mauricio Martinez discusses the tendency for Guatemalan political parties to emerge, persist briefly, and then disappear.

La Hora 2008

When competitive elections returned to Guatemala with its founding elections of November 1985, twelve political parties competed. All twelve have subsequently disappeared. The last to disappear was the Christian Democratic Party (DCG) after the last election.


PAN Website

Today, the political party that lays claim to being the country's oldest is a party founded in 1989, the National Advancement Party (PAN). Alvaro Arzu, formerly of the PAN and now of the Unionist Party, was president of the country during the signing of the peace accords. The second oldest is the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) of General Rios Montt, a party who is most likely presenting his daughter as its presidential candidate this year.

It's quite possible, even likely, that a dozen or so of the twenty-four or -five political parties will cease to exist after the elections later this year. Both the PAN and FRG have fallen on hard times in recent years. In the congress, the PAN has seen its members switch to GANA and the Unionist Party while those of the FRG have switched to the Patriotic Party. The FRG maintains 9 seats (down from 14 at the start of the congress) and the PAN 2 seats (down from 3 at the start of the congress).

In a couple of academic articles, Omar Sanchez characterizes the Guatemalan political system as "exceptionally inchoate" (2008) so much so that it makes more sense to call it a "party nonsystem" (2009). These systems are "characterized by persistently high transfers of votes away from the main parties towards new and small parties (i.e. high extrasystemic volatility), an ever-changing constellation of parties without a stable ‘core.’" It's not just that today's winners amongst Guatemala's parties are tomorrow's losers, it's that today's winners are likely to disappear and tomorrow's winners haven't even been created yet.

It's a little too early to tell, but perhaps Guatemala is in some ways moving beyond this aspect of its party system. UNE, GANA, PP, and the FRG had the four largest legislative blocs at the beginning of the current congress and they finished 1, 3, 2, and 4 in the presidential election. GANA and UNE have formed an alliance in 2011 against the PP front runner. Perhaps we'll have a rematch of the 2008 runoff election between the UNE and PP parties. In that sense, it will be unusual for the two main political parties from the last elections to be the two main political parties in this election.

I'll try to get to the other article projecting violence in this year's election and two Wikileaks cables (one old and one new) sometime this week. Read ahead if you'd like

Sigfredo Reyes and Salvadoran Congress

I kept meaning to get around to Sigfredo Reyes and the FMLN assuming the presidency in the country's Legislative Assembly. Even though the FMLN has held a plurality of seats on the Assembly for the last few years, Reyes became the first member of the FMLN to occupy the presidency on February 1st.

Omar Nieto has a nice round up at Global Voices from around the spectrum on the event's importance and expectations for the enxt fifteen months.One of Reyes' promises was to increase transparency in the operations of the Assembly. As a result, we now have some information on salaries at legislative staff.



(See here for the rest of the speech.)

Prior to assuming the presidency, Reyes gave an interview to ContraPunto's Nelson Rentería/Fernando de Dios. In the interview, Reyes talks about how he became political aware of the conditions in El Salvador with the February 1975 electoral fraud that prevented Jose Napoleon Duarte from winning the presidency. He was eleven years old at the time. There's also his involvement in student protests, the importance of Archbishop Oscar Romero, study abroad in Moscow, and his capture on the morning of the FMLN offensive in November 1989.

The 29th Anniversary of the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG)

While everyone was celebrating what would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday yesterday, today the URNG is celebrating an anniversary. On February 7, 1982, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA), and the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) formed the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG).

Over the next decade, the guerrillas were weakened by a series of military defeats and assassinations, the apparent failure of Marxism-Leninism as a viable alternative to the liberal-democratic order, and their failure to develop a broad based opposition to the military, and then civil-military, regimes. After nearly fifteen years of war, the URNG signed the Firm and Lasting Peace Agreement with President Alvaro Arzu of the National Advancement Party (PAN) on December 29, 1996. The URNG officially began the legal process of becoming a political party in June 1997 and was formally inscribed as a political party eighteen months later.

In 1999, the URNG prepared to form part of the New Nation Alliance (ANN) along with the Democratic Front for a New Guatemala (FDNG), the Democratic Leftist Union and the Authentic Integral Development Party for legislative and presidential elections. The alliance would have allowed the URNG and the Guatemalan left to capitalize on the previous electoral success of the FDNG which had elected six deputies to the Congress in 1995. But the leftist coalition fractured when the FDNG withdrew from the alliance in the midst of the 1999 campaign.

In the presidential election, the ANN candidate, Álvaro Colom Caballeros (Guatemala's current president), won just over 12% of the vote and finished in third place, well behind the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) and the (PAN). In the congressional elections, the URNG as part of the ANN won nine congressional seats. This accounted for 8% of the congress’ total of 113 seats.
For many new political parties, 8% of the seats would be quite an accomplishment. But given that the party led by former dictator Efrain Ríos Montt (FRG) captured sixty-three seats (56%) and the second most successful party (PAN) captured thirty-seven seats (33%), many were disappointed with the URNG’s electoral results. Some said that elections' outcome “essentially translated its military defeat into political defeat.”

Between the 1999 and 2003 elections, the URNG continued to have problems with maintaining its party unity and, eventually, Jorge Soto resigned from the party. The URNG remained distant from civil society and many of its former combatants at this time as well. By the time of the 2003 elections rolled around, the URNG was in a significantly weaker position than it was in 1999.

Like the FMLN, the URNG presented one of its historic leaders as its presidential candidate in its second attempt at the presidency after choosing an individual loosely tied to the insurgency in its first attempt. In November 2003, the URNG selected Rodrigo Asturias (aka Gaspar Ilom), the son of Nobel Literature Laureate Miguel Angel Asturias. After a disappointing campaign, Asturias captured 3% of the national vote and finished in sixth place. As the URNG’s performance dropped from 12% to 3%, so too its vote total dropped by some 200,000, leaving it with fewer than 70,000 votes.

The elections for the country’s legislature were similarly disappointing as the URNG captured 4% percent of the national vote and two seats in the congress. Its performance was considerably worse than simply capturing fewer seats relative to 1999, as the total number of seats available had increased from 113 to 158 in the intervening years.

In 2007, fourteen candidates vied for the presidency with only three (Colom 28.23%, Pérez Molina 23.51%, and Giammattei 17.23%) attaining electoral support in the double digits. The URNG-MAIZ ticket captured a disappointing, but not unexpected, two percent of the vote. The ex-guerrillas in the ANN captured less than 1%. Finally, the Encuentro por Guatemala-Winaq, with Rigoberta Menchú as its candiate, received 3.09% of the national vote. Colom defeated Pérez Molina in a second round contest to become the sixth consecutive civilian president of Guatemala (53% to 47%). At the same time, the URNG-MAIZ captured two seats in the congress with 3.27% of the vote.

Today, the URNG-MAIZ is working to form a broad front to contest the 2011 elections with Pablo Monsanto of the ANN and other political and social organizations on the left. There's no clear presidential candidate (Pablo?) and the party has little ability to affect this year's presidential election. At the legislative level, the URNG and allies could pick up a seat in perhaps Chimaltenango, Sololá, Alta Verapaz, or Petén. and also hold its Huehuetenango (Walter Felix) and from the national list (Hector Nuila).
 
Happy anniversary and here's to a successful bounce back campaign in September.

Support for Democracy in El Salvador

Tim linked to a report from El Faro that showed that 45.6% of Salvadorans would support a military coup if the economic and security situations in the country are not resolved. The poll was conducted between November 8 and 13 with 1,200 people and has a margin of error of +/- 2.8%.

That's not great news, of course. The good people at LAPOP carried out surveys in 2008 and 2010 that ask basically the same question. You can find the details in Political Culture of Democracy in El Salvador, 2010. 

According to their research, Salvadoran support for a military coup declined from 43.1% in 2008 to 40.9% in 2010. In that case, while it's a pretty high number of Salvadorans who would support a coup, it's down from recent years.

In another series of questions, Salvadorans were asked “Democracy may have problems, but it is better than any other form of government. To what extent do you agree or disagree with these statements?”Support has bounced around a bit over the last six years from 68.8% in 2004 to 61.3% in 2006, back up to 68.4% in 2008, and finally settling at 64.1% in 2010.

On the one hand, citizen support for democracy is pretty low, especially compared to other countries in the region, and support for a military coup is still alarmingly high. On the other hand, the survey results do show that support for democracy is higher today than it has been in the recent past.

LAPOP's 2010 data was collected in February 2010, eight months before the new survey reported in El Faro. You can't directly compare the two surveys so I don't want to draw any strong conclusions about trends in support for democracy  between February (LAPOP) and November (EL Faro). We're just going to have to wait a bit until we get additional survey data.

What's Your Favorite Party?

Vox Latina recently carried out a nationwide survey in Guatemala between January 5 and 11. To no one's surprise, the nation's political parties did not come out looking too good.

Guatemalans were asked whether they sympathized with any political party or whether one was most convincing to them this campaign.

49% of the respondents answered none. Otto Perez Molina's PP came in second with 22.4%. While Vox Latina warns that one should not infer from these numbers how Guatemalans are likely to vote in September, I can't imagine that UNE is feeling good right now.

As some of the analysts cited in the article make clear, the lack of identification with political parties is nothing new in Guatemala. Dinorah Azpuru argues that parties do not look to promote participation in the political process beyond elections and that, in return, citizens show little interest in parties.

While it will be strange for the first and second place finishers from the 2007 election to finish first and second in 2011 (typically the governing party suffers dramatic losses and primary opposition party emerges victorious in the next election), it's not because Guatemalans have come to identify with either party and that we are witnessing the creation of a two-party system. At least, not yet.

Finally, the percentages only add up to 98.2%. I am thinking that the ADN, ANN, EG, MIO, UD, BG and another three political parties have the other 1.8% support. That still leaves three political parties missing. Anybody have the names of the remaining three?

Elections News in Guatemala

A few notes on the 2011 elections

The TSE recently fined three political parties $125 each for violating campaign rules - the Patriotic Party, CREO, the PAN. A fourth political party, Victoria, was admonished for distributing flyers but since it was its first offense, the fine was waived. The PP, CREO, Victoria, and PAN now join UNE, Unionista, GANA, FRG, Lider, and EG, each of which was fined earlier this year or late last year. There are still thirteen parties to go before the TSE has fined everyone. Let's get a move on.

That's 45 sanctions so far. We're probably going to see an increase in the number of fines as campaigning really seems to have picked up in recent days and congress has been unwilling to increase the maximum penalty that the TSE can levy. Working against more sanctions, however, is the fact that the TSE just doesn't have enough personnel to oversee each of the twenty-five political parties.

Manuel Villacorta foresees a violent campaign season in an interview Prensa Libre and fears that the campaign will only serve to further discredit the political system. As most do, he sees UNE and PP as the two strongest parties heading into the September 4. What was interesting is that he believes that the PP might have made some inroads in the rural vote compared to 2007 that might make a difference in 2011.

While it's not certain that Sandra Torres will be the UNE candidate, three of her allies were just selected to lead the party heading into this year's elections. While most parties have accepted September 11 as the day of the vote, UNE is still unhappy. According to UNE representatives, they do not believe that it is appropriate to hold the election in Guatemala on a day when so many people died in New York. Others believe that UNE doesn't want anyone to make fun of the Colom sisters (Sandra and Gloria), portraying them as two burning towers, during their campaign.

Recently Colom and civil society have warned about organized crime infiltrating the electoral process. Barring any radical changes in the next two weeks, the country's political parties will sign an ethics pact on February 7 to try to address these concerns. The pact will add some transparency to how campaigns are financed by requiring each party to submit a monthly list of the names of their donors and their financial contributions. They will provide this information to the TSE. I can't remember where I read it, but there seemed to be some concern that this won't do much for municipal elections where the influence of organized crime is of the greatest concern.

Former Congressman Assassinated in Guatemala

A former member of Congress from the Patriotic Party was murdered on Wednesday inside a shopping mall in the western part of Guatemala City (Prensa Libre, El Periodico, Siglo XXI). Edgar Antonio Almengor Pérez was a deputy from the Suchitepéquez Department for the Patriotic Party. He served during the 2004-2008 term.

While police do not as of yet have a motive for the crime, they do not think that it was random.  The shots were accurate and the suspect fled in a waiting car. Almengor died at the scene.

The Economist on Funes - So Far, So Good

The Economist recently highlighted the first eighteen months in office of today's most popular president in Latin America.

THE mess faced by Mauricio Funes when he was elected president of El Salvador last year suggested he was in for a bumpy ride. Rampant gang violence produced the world’s highest murder rate in 2009. Amid the global financial crisis the economy shrank by 3.6%, one of the biggest drops in the region. El Salvador is not an easy place to govern. Yet 18 months later 79% of voters back Mr Funes, making him Latin America’s most popular leader.

His support does not come from any great success over crime or the economy. The murder rate dipped after Mr Funes ordered the army onto the streets and banned gang membership, but has since bounced back. And in the past year 5% of Salvadoreans suffered an extortion attempt, often orchestrated by mobile phone from prisons. Meanwhile the economy has barely limped back to growth. It is not expected to reach its pre-recession level until 2012 because of the country’s dependence on the United States, whose recovery has been weak.

My question for readers is why do you think Funes remains so popular?

1. The Economist argues that Funes' "centrist approach has won over voters who had tired of El Salvador’s polarised politics."
2. He's actually doing a really good job in managing the economy and public insecurity.
3. He's not really doing a good job (most people think that the economy and public security situations have worsened), but he's doing better than expected.
4. (Related to number 2) He's not really doing a good job, but he's doing better than any ARENA candidate would have done. 

San Sebastián Huehuetenango Murder

Last Wednesday, I mentioned that Juan Hernández Fabián, the mayor of San Sebastián Huehuetenango, had been shot to death by unknown gunmen.   On Friday, El Periodico reported that police investigators raised the possibility that political motivations might have been behind his murder. 

Several political competitors were unhappy with community work carried out by the mayor's office.  After the initial audit came back clean, they asked the authorities to audit the projects a second time.  These political competitors had a meeting scheduled with other community members and auditors on the day that Mayor Hernández was killed.  However, they cancelled the meeting earlier in the day giving rise to speculation that they knew something was in the works.  I haven't found any additional details about the killings in any of the major media since earlier in the week so I don't really know if anything has changed.

According to UNE, Hernández had not reported any acts of intimidation.  However, there authorities are most likely taking another look at his son's murder.  His son was murdered in December 2009 while on vacation.  

Since January 2008, fifteen crimes have been committed against mayors and other government employees.

Mayor of San Sebastián Huehuetenango Killed

Juan Hernández Fabián, the mayor of San Sebastián Huehuetenango was shot to death this afternoon by unknown gunmen.  Three men opened fire on him as he exited his vehicle.  The men then escaped on foot.

Hernández (UNE) was elected in 2007 with 28% of the municipality's vote.  San Sebastián Huehuetenango is located in the department of Huehuetenango, along the Mexican border.

No other information has yet been made public.