Day Sixteen, Antigua

Today was a very important day in the history of Guatemala. Today is the fourth democratic election of a president in the history of Guatemala, after the end of the civil war in 1996. Every four years there is a full shift in all government positions. The people of Guatemala vote for President and Vice President, 333 Municipal Alcades, 120 Congressional Seats, and 20 Central American Parliament positions. There are ten candidates for president that the Guatemalan people can vote for: Otto Perez Molina, Manuel Baldizon, Eduardo Suger, Harold Caballeros, Rigoberta Menchu, Patricia de Arzu, Mario Estrada, Juan Gutierrez, Adela Camacho de Torrebiarte, and Alejandro Giamattei. To win the election, one of these 10 candidates needs to get over 50% of the votes, if no one manages to get those numbers there is a secondary election between the two candidates with the highest percentage of votes on November 6th. The winner takes office in January 2012. There are also 28 registered political parties, 32,000 candidates for all offices, 36 campaign related deaths this year (68 in 2007), 7.3 registered voters (out of 14.4 million population including children), the oldest active party only dates to 1989, only 7 parties predate 2000, and all of the running candidates have spent more than the 1 million budget limit for campaigning. The law also states that all Guatemalans old enough to vote must vote or suffer a fine. Because a large percentage of the population is illiterate the ballots are pictures of the candidates and you only X the logo for the candidate you wish to vote for.

The whole process is fascinating, and watching it from a semi-inside view point is amazing. Antigua was filled to bursting with Guatemalans coming in from all the surrounding towns to cast their votes. Only a few days ago there was an illegal rally for Otto Perez (he had already spent well over the 1 million limit so the rally was deemed illegal) here in Antigua. In comparison with US elections, the whole process is very much more simple and vastly more complicated; there are 10 candidates instead of 2, yet the ballot is pictures and symbols and as simple as a ballot can be. To get a better sense of the situation and to look at the campaign methods of the different candidates I highly suggest looking at this blog <http://centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/> which is keeping a close eye on the election as it unfolds.