Weekly Report - 6 January 2004
GUATEMALA: Berger wins, starts stitching alliances
There were no surprises in the presidential run-off held in Guatemala on 28 December. The electorate didn't expect them, and only 44% of the voters turned up at the polling stations. Businessman Oscar Berger, candidate of the Gran Alianza Nacional (Gana) coalition, won comfortably with 54% of the vote. Needy of outside support in congress, Berger has already invited his rival, Alvaro Colom of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), to `lend a hand'.
Gana leaders have been in talks with legislators from the left-of-centre UNE and the conservative Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN) with a view to producing a consensual legislative agenda. The starting-point is the share-out of offices in the single-chamber congress. The presidency, it has been agreed, will go to someone from UNE.
Gana has 47 seats in the 158-seat congress. If it can add the 32 of UNE and 17 of PAN, it will have a working majority able to push through ordinary legislation but slightly short of the two thirds needed for special laws of constitutional import. The outgoing Frente Republicano Guatemalteco has 43 seats; the remaining 19 are shared out among other opposition parties.
The cabinet
Berger had made it clear that he would recruit his cabinet chiefly from business and `technocratic' circles. The names that have surfaced so far are:
Gana leaders have been in talks with legislators from the left-of-centre UNE and the conservative Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN) with a view to producing a consensual legislative agenda. The starting-point is the share-out of offices in the single-chamber congress. The presidency, it has been agreed, will go to someone from UNE.
Gana has 47 seats in the 158-seat congress. If it can add the 32 of UNE and 17 of PAN, it will have a working majority able to push through ordinary legislation but slightly short of the two thirds needed for special laws of constitutional import. The outgoing Frente Republicano Guatemalteco has 43 seats; the remaining 19 are shared out among other opposition parties.
The cabinet
Berger had made it clear that he would recruit his cabinet chiefly from business and `technocratic' circles. The names that have surfaced so far are:
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