At long last, there is some ray of hope for the common people of the Central American nation Guatemala which will going for its run off national elections on August 20. In a surprise development, the centre left party Semilla candidate Bernardo Arevalo stood in the second position with 12 per cent votes in the first round on June 25 just slight below the far right candidate Sandra Torres who got 15 per cent. Now both of them will be fighting for the Presidential post in the final round.. There will be elections to 160 member chamber of deputies also.
Previous polls showed Arévalo led Semilla polling at below 3%, not even among the top seven candidates. But in the weeks preceding the first round, there were massive demonstrations by the people of all sections against the corrupt and anti-people policies of the present government. Arévalo will now be pitted against Sandra Torres, former first lady and now candidate of the right-wing UNE party (National Unity for Hope).
The right wing media and the ruling party have called the Semilla leader as a communist, he is not that, but his party’s platform certainly represents a shift away from the right-wing status quo. Semilla’s policy promises are a direct challenge to the powers that have long ruled Guatemala. The party pledges to invest billions in public education and beef up public healthcare with the goal of eventually reaching universal coverage. Arevalo’s programmes are similar to the policies of the present Brazilian president Lula.
Arévalo also wants to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the People’s Republic of China. Guatemala is one of the few countries in the world that still recognizes the authorities in Taipei, Taiwan as the official government of all of China.. He is promising the government control over some of the key natural resources of Guatemala so as to bring down the power of the big multinational corporations belonging to the USA. During dictatorship as also later far right regimes, Guatamela government followed a foreign policy on lines of US administration which the Semilla leader certainly
Naturally, the big corporates and oligarchs are not sitting idle to allow Semilla to mobilise more support before the final round. They are doing everything possible to stop the momentum that has been generated in the country after the June 25 elections. On July 1, Guatemala’s top court ordered the ballots from the first-round presidential elections to be reviewed at the request of several right-wing parties, including Torres’s UNE and the ruling party Vamos (Let’s Go).
Eventually, the Guatemalan TSE (Supreme Electoral Tribunal) certified the results, but that didn’t stop the right-wing offensive. On July 12, Rafael Curruchiche, new head of the FECI (Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity) declared he was disqualifying Semilla for “supposed” fraud,
However, according to article 92 of the TSE, “no party can be suspended after the start of elections and until elections are over.” On July 13, the TSE refuted Curruchiche’s claims and suspended the order disqualifying Arévalo.
But further showing the ruling class’s disdain for democracy, the Public Ministry—in conservative hands—has yet to certify the results, informing the country that it will continue the investigation against Semilla for alleged “anomalies” during the election.
In response, thousands of Guatemalans continue protesting to demand the government fully certify the election results. For many, the events unfolding in Guatemala bring back tragic memories of past progressive advances and the reactionary response they garnered.. The demand for free and fair elections is now the battle cry of the supporters of Arevalo as the run off date approaches.
Guatemala has a tumultuous history relating to the functioning of democracy in the last century. In 1944, a coalition of the urban and rural sectors of the working class ousted Dictator Jorge Ubico, who ruled from 1931 to 1944. These events are known as Guatemala’s “October Revolution” and ushered in the “Ten Years of Spring,” a period of democratic progress that stretched until 1954.
Juan Jose Arévalo, the father of Bernardo Arévalo, was elected president of Guatemala in the country’s first democratic elections. For six years, the PAR (Revolutionary Action Party) governed, overseeing a liberalization of politics and public life. The government enacted labor reforms that included the formation of the IGSS (Guatemalan Institute of Social Security) and a new constitution.
Arévalo called his philosophy of governance “spiritual socialism”. During his tenure 1.4 million acres of land had been expropriated from the foreign owners and domestic landlords and distributed. To more than 5 lakh landless belonging to mostly indigenous people.. The land distribution hit badly the US companies, especially the United Fruit Company. The US MNCs plotted with the domestic far right and brought down the government through the US intelligence agency CIA. The dictatorship of the far right began reversing all progressive reforms of the earlier era and this continued till the late nineties of the last century.
From 1996 to 2023, Guatemalan politics continued to be dominated by a conservative and comprador elite. On Sept. 15, 2015, after months of protest from the Guatemalan people, Otto Pérez Molina resigned as president after a warrant was issued for his arrest over a scheme that involved defrauding the country of millions of dollars. He also participated in the scorched earth military tactics of 1982-83 that led to the massacre of thousands of Indigenous people during the civil war.
That way, for the first time since 1954, the poor of Guatemala are looking at the August 20 elections with some hope as the son of that pro-poor Prime Minister of the last century is in the electoral fray again with a similar programme of land distribution and spread of health and education facilities among the underprivileged. All the social groups including the Guatemala Communist Party have extended their support of Arevalo in the presidential run off.
On July 13, 2023, the Indigenous socialist party MLP (Movement for the Liberation of the People) issued a statement calling for unity against the right-wing electoral fraud clearly unfolding in the country. The peasant union, CODECA, has also called for people to mobilize. The Indigenous ancestral leadership of the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán issued a declaration that same day that if the government doesn’t certify the election results, it would mobilize all the Indigenous peoples of Guatemala against the corrupt government.
On July 14, the Guatemalan communist party (PGT) issued a declaration saying that a victory for Semilla would represent a progressive shift away from the neoconservative policies of the right-wing dominated government. With this, the Communists also called for unity to defend the will of the people of Guatemala. Guatemalan communists took part in the guerrilla struggle along with other left wing groups in the last century .Their trade union activists are campaigning for the victory of Arevalo. More. More than three weeks are left for the run off but the tempo has reached its peak and many journalists are smelling a wind of change. But the big question still is will the right and the administration controlled by it allow a free and fair election on August 20?(IPA Service)
By Satyaki Chakraborty
