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Caribbean & Central America - September 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

GUATEMALA: The definitive decision on Torres

Former First Lady Sandra Torres is out of the 11 September presidential race; thus the ruling centre-left Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), the country’s biggest party, and its right-leaning ally, Gran Alianza Nacional (Gana), are left without a candidate. On 8 August the constitutional court (CC) upheld previous rulings by the supreme court of justice (CSJ) and the electoral authorities (TSE) disqualifying Torres - who was polling second - on the grounds that, despite her divorce from President Alvaro Colom, explicitly aimed at sidestepping the constitutional ban on presidential candidacy of close relatives of the incumbent, their relationship still “exists”. Despite earlier threats to the contrary, the UNE has accepted the verdict. Yet its refusal to endorse any of the ten remaining candidates (nine of whom represent different strands of the Right, while the left-wing indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchú stands little chance) has triggered speculation as to where these votes will migrate. The other imponderable is whether the frontrunner, former general Otto Pérez Molina of the Partido Patriota (PP), can manage a first round victory – making him the first candidate since the end of the country’s 1960-1996 civil war to do so.

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