What happened in Guatemala?
Sunday, November 13th, 2011
((Brasil de Fato photo))
A country that for 36 years saw a revolutionary movement, with a political-military strategy, elects as president a former general of the counter insurgency
[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for November 9. See original here.]
By Silvia Álvarez
In contrast with the neighboring countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua, which saw insurgent civil wars that solidified into electoral triumphs, the left in Guatemala seems not to have made the transition into a political party. On Sunday, the 6th, thousands of Guatemalan citizens went to the polls to elect as president the candidate of the extreme right, Otto Pérez Molina of the Partido Patriota (PP). In an electoral dispute whose ideological coloration was dominated by the right, the principal theme of the campaigns was security despite the fact that the country is suffering from other serious problems like poverty and unemployment, aggravated by the tropical storms that devastated the country in the past month. (more…)