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Caribbean & Central America - May 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)
GUATEMALA: Menchú’s candidacy – a new hope for the Left?
The indigenous leader and Nobel peace prize laureate, Rigoberta Menchú, has confirmed a fresh bid for the presidency in the September 2011 general elections. Having managed just 3% of the vote in the last 2007 election, and having maintained a low profile since, few believe she is likely to pose a threat to current the frontrunners, Otto Pérez Molina of the right-wing Partido Patriota and former First Lady Sandra Torres running for her ex husband’s (President Alvaro Colom) centre-left Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE). Menchú’s candidacy for the Frente Amplio de Izquierda, a broad coalition comprising her own party, Winaq, former guerrilla-turned political party Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) and the left-wing party Alianza Nueva Nación (ANN) along with more than 60 social movements, is nonetheless significant. It represents the first concerted effort to unite the Left since the 1996 Peace Accords which ended the 36-year civil war.
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