Further twists in the judicial saga of retired General Efraín Ríos Montt's candidacy triggered two days of rioting by mobs of his followers, which took a toll in the higher echelons of the police, claimed three (accidental) victims -and left the general's candidacy just as undefined as before.
As we reported last week, the constitutional court (CC) granted Ríos Montt an injunction ordering the electoral tribunal (TSE) to register him as a presidential candidate.
Before this could happen, though, the left of centre Unión Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) filed with the supreme court an injunction of its own, to block the TSE from carrying out what the UNE deemed an illegal order.
The CSJ granted a temporary injunction, but this was countered by a string of three recursos de ocurso (petitions against official disobeying injunctions) filed with the CC. This forced the CSJ to hand over the whole dossier to the CC.
The FRG riots. Two steps earlier, before the CC had ruled in his favour and it looked as if he was to be denied the opportunity to run for the third consecutive time, Ríos Montt warned publicly, 'This could create violence because we are outside the law; when one is outside the law one is violent.'
When the file went back to the CC, the general's party, the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), decided to influence the outcome with a measure of direct action. From all parts of the country, using government vehicles, it ferried into Guatemala city a mob of about 10,000, many of them members of the street gangs known as maras, or former members of the PACs, the 'self-defence patrols' set up by the military to aid their counter-insurgency effort.
Their targets were the premises of the CC and the Centro Empresarial, a business centre in the capital where some 300 people were held hostage for 10 hours -and journalists everywhere. Shots were fired, but fortunately missed their mark, though there were several incidents of clubbings. FRG youth leader Juan Pablo Ríos (the general's grandson) led a contingent into the affluent quarter of La Cañada, to strike fear into 'the oligarchs'.
A TV journalist died of a heart attack fleeing the mob. On the other side, two FRG followers were killed and 20 injured when the truck bringing them from Baja Verapaz overturned.
At the end of the first day, President Alfonso Portillo ordered the army into the streets to restore order. The police kept out of the way until well into the second day, when the rioting was winding down. The military did not materialise.
...and back again. The presence of the mob must have affected the CC, but not in the manner intended: in a 3:2 vote it rejected the ocursos and handed the whole matter back to the CSJ, which must now decide if it makes its temporary injunction definitive. Either way, the UNE or the FRG will be able to appeal to the CC. In that case, the outcome is not foreordained: the titular judges will have to pick two alternates to form a seven-strong panel, and this could upset the political balance Ríos Montt relies on.
With the judicial outcome still in the air, interior minister Adolfo Reyes dismissed police chief Raúl Manchamé for having kept his force of the streets, and initiated proceedings against another three high-ranking officers.
The defence minister, General Robín Macloni, and the army chief of staff, General Enrique Ríos Sosa (the would-be candidate's son) were summoned to congress to explain why the army hadn't intervened. Macloni said the police hadn't requested assistance; Ríos -to everyone's astonishment- claimed that the army had gone out on the streets.
Perhaps the most ironic sideline: a poll showed Ríos Montt running a poor third in voter preferences, with only 11.4%, to the 45.3% attracted by frontrunner Oscar Berger.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 660 words.
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