[NYTr] Guatemala: Bleak Prospects for a Democratic Renaissance (COHA)

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Council on Hemispheric Affairs - Aug 6, 2007
http://www.coha.org/2007/08/06/bleak-prospects-for-a-democratic-renaissance-in-guatemala/


Bleak Prospects for a Democratic Renaissance in Guatemala

by COHA Research Associate Martha Lauer 

The September 9, 2007 Guatemalan presidential elections will
experience, for the first time, an indigenous woman attempting to
capture her country’s highest office: Rigoberta Menchú is challenging
candidates Alvaro Colom, General Otto Pérez Molina and Alejandro
Giammattei. If Menchú wins the ballot, it could lead to major changes
in Guatemala, such as national recognition and overflowing pride in the
indigenous heritage. But with only one month until the September 9
ballot, Menchú’s chances are fast slipping away as her popularity
continues to sharply decline, stalling now in single digit percentages.

It was thought that her international fame resulting from winning the
1992 Nobel Peace Prize—bestowed for her nonviolent work on behalf of
oppressed native people—would have somehow boosted her domestic
credibility, but instead it might have served to limit her appeal.
Aside from her noteworthy accomplishments, her platform lacks substance
and has suffered when contrasted against the favored center-left
candidate, Alvaro Colom. With a little time left to gain much-needed
support, Menchú must either aggressively come out fighting or give up
the dream of being able to carry the distinction of being Guatemala’s
first indigenous and female president.

The Candidates

Menchú is the Encuentro por Guatemala’s (EG) candidate, and Alejandro
Giammattei, who formerly was director of the country’s prison system,
comes from the now barely competitive ruling Gran Alianza Nacional
(GANA). Meanwhile, Pérez Molina is running for the rightist Partido
Patriota, with Colom being the standard bearer of the left-leaning
Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE). Colom unsuccessfully challenged
the now incumbent President Berger in the 2003 presidential election,
which he ultimately lost. However, his initial run was strong enough to
win him UNE’s support again as its presidential candidate for the 2008
election.

Changing Tides

For a while, Menchú’s candidacy was a clear indicator that politics
within Guatemala were beginning to change. Guatemala has a population
of 13 million, 40 percent of whom are of Mayan descent. Until recently,
Guatemalan politics have been dominated by Ladinos (people of European
or mixed descent), but now indigenous politicians are making headway in
Congress and are being elected as mayors across the country. For
Menchú, a K’iche Mayan Indian, it should have been easy enough for her
to amass fellow indigenous support. She had had notable success in
securing support abroad, including that of Bolivian president Evo
Morales, also of indigenous descent, who gave her his endorsement.

Among some of the indigenous there always had been a general atmosphere
of mistrust surrounding Menchú’s candidacy, and she has done little to
dispel the grounds for this. Although she is of indigenous descent,
Menchú has not gone out of her way to use her singular background to
attract the votes of Guatemala’s near-majority native Mayan population,
whose votes alone should have given her the electoral advantage that
Menchú now desperately needs. A further possible hindrance to her
election are the accustaions that she has had past associations with
Marxist guerrillas and recently has been close to President Berger’s
conservative government. This has placed her in an unfavorable light
with some, who see her as having a straddling personality without a
core of genuine conviction. In addition, she created her own political
party, Winaq, meaning ‘humanity’ in the K’iche language, whose
leadership lacks practical government experience or seasoned
lieutenants. Moreover, she does not project strong policies that could
generate a large and enthusiastic as well as partisan backing of her
candidacy. The main plank in her platform seems to revolve around her
personal background and the multiple experiences that led up to her
winning the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize in “recognition of her work for
social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for
the rights of indigenous people.”

Errors Leading to Political Alienation

According to the Caribbean and Central American Report, in late March
2007, there was a “continental summit of indigenous people and
nationalities of Abya Yala, held in Iximché, a sacred Mayan site and
main city of the Kagchikel Maya people,” but astonishingly, Menchú
failed to make an appearance there, nor did she send a message of any
sort. Formal support of her presidential candidacy was proposed by one
of the delegates as the conference was coming to an end, but any
prospects for a collective backing of her candidacy was quickly shot
down by the attendees as many viewed her failure to appear as an
insulting snubbing of the indigenous culture. Thus, she has managed to
alienate herself from a large portion of what could have been her
potential backers.

Furthermore, the choice of Luis Fernando Montenegro, a former president
of Guatemala’s national coffee association (ANACAFE), as Menchú’s
vice-presidential running-mate further antagonized some of the
indigenous population. They accused her of embracing the neo-liberal
model through her alliance with the EG and her partnership with
Montenegro.

The Indigenous Rise To Power

Nevertheless, the indigenous population appears to be staging a break
through to the country’s mainstream political milieu and today controls
119 out of 332 mayoralties in communities considered native. They
represent a large sector of the population whose support Menchú should
be actively courting and which should have been committed to her
candidacy by now. Instead of going back to her roots to gain her core
supporters, however, Menchú almost exclusively pursued those who
already are disenchanted with Guatemala’s political party-based system,
but there are now not many new votes to be found here.

Menchú created her own party, Winaq, so that she could run unhindered
for the presidency and without having to ward off any pressure to
compromise on her own goals. Even though she is now the official
candidate of the EG, she initially had been trying to build alliances
with different parties in order to attract a wider base of support than
the miniscule tally she has attracted up to now. But, according to the
February 22 issue of the Central American & Caribbean Affairs, Menchú
wanted her party to have more of a stake in the operation, with Winaq
being assigned “50 percent of the candidacies for mayors and deputies
on the slate.” Menchú’s actions, in both creating her own party and
selecting her own VP candidate, showed that she was prepared to
compromise when it was to her advantage to do so, even if it
potentially isolates her from large support groups, but is also
prepared to hold her ground. These shifts seem both confuse as well as
confound supporters and opponents alike.

A July 18 opinion poll showed that Colom and Pérez Molina are
separately gaining in popular support and are favored to win the
September election, or at least make it past the first round, reports
Latinnews Daily. Colom currently holds 37.5 percent of the vote while
Menchú falters with less than a mere 5 percent. Meanwhile, candidates
Pérez Molina and Giammattei have a sagging 20.4 percent and 12.1
percent respectively. While in relation to polling results there always
is a significant margin of error, Colom nonetheless maintains a
definitive lead over the other candidates and only needs 40 percent of
the vote to win in September, eliminating the need of a second round
vote.

A Platform of... What?

Menchú won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work based on nonviolence
on behalf of oppressed Indians. For this year’s ballot, her main
platform goals are headed by poverty alleviation, greater security, and
combating corruption, all topics that have obvious connections to her
lifetime work for oppressed native people. Before announcing her
candidacy in collaboration with the EG, Winaq, tried to strike up
alliances with parties on both the left and the right, such as the EG
as well as the Movimiento Amplio de la Izquierda (MAIZ). Amilcar Pop of
Winaq says that Menchú’s party is “seeking the reconstruction of the
Guatemalan state to make structural changes and eradicate all
expressions of institutionalized racism.”

Menchú has said that she would review the Dominican Republic-Central
American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), with Guatemala being one of
the six countries that already have ratified the pact. The agreement
has given preferential trade access for Guatemalan exports to the U.S.
market; but Menchú’s objective would be to make the pact more
beneficial to Guatemala. But with DR-CAFTA already in effect, it seems
unlikely that she would do much to change the status quo.

Escalating Violence

With the election only a month away, concern has been raised over the
increasing violence that has resulted in the deaths of members of every
Guatemalan political party. While the numbers vary, the Guatemalan
Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH) and Mirador Electoral (Election Watch)
estimate the number of political murders from March 2006 onward to be
between 26 and 36. None of the political parties have remained
untouched; it has not been determined if the murders directly correlate
to the popularity of the candidates or parties. UNE has suffered 14
murders, GANA five, PP four, and EG and Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
Guatemalteca (URNG) have suffered three murders each.

2007 Election: What Does the Future Hold?

With the election fast approaching, there is not even the slimmest of
chances that Menchú will be able to dent Colom’s anticipated victory.
While the overall ratings for each of the candidates in a very large
field have fallen since the beginning of the campaign due to various
factions breaking off, Colom still holds a double-digit lead over
Menchú. In order for Menchú to pull off a miraculous victory she must
implement radical changes in her campaign, with this appearing unlikely.

To begin, it is important that Menchú secures broader popular support
and convinces the population that she is a doughty figure who would
fight for that which is important to the country as well as to her
immediate community, and not see the presidency as a support base for
only the latter. For decades Menchú has been in the public eye due to
her admirable work with the indigenous, but she still lacks government
experience, a fact that gives even her own people good cause to be
skeptical and question her ability to effectively lead her troubled
nation. If Menchú can gain support in her few remaining weeks on the
campaign trail—there is a possibility that she could emerge as a strong
candidate in a future race. But sadly, as of today, her chances of
winning the 2007 presidency are slim to nil.