Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
The entry titled "Guatemala's election gets bloody."
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > September > 06 > Entry
Guatemala’s election gets bloody
I had last traveled to Guatemala eight years ago, and when we arrived this week to cover Sunday’s presidential election, I could barely recognize the place. Guatemala City’s airport is something out of “The Jetsons,” thanks to a renovation that rightly claims the government is building Central America’s most modern airport. The area around the airport is filled with towering buildings and the skies are crowded with cranes.
But the apparent affluence that greets the visitor is only a mask over horrible violence that has many here spooked ahead of the election. Depending on whom you talk to, Guatemala has perhaps Latin America’s highest murder rate, far outpacing any U.S. city. The political violence (43 candidates killed so far) seems a remnant of darker times until you learn it’s mostly caused by unbelievably brazen drug cartels.
“Everyone here is very nervous,” Sonia Madrid, an office worker told us as we strolled through a posh Guatemala City mall (malls in the Third World all tend to be very posh).
Many people here in Guatemala City favor Otto Perez, a tough-talking (and -looking) former general who promises to wipe out the drug gangs. He’s likely headed to a runoff with Alvaro Colom, a centrist who gets most of his support from rural areas. Some pundits say Colom, who a few months ago seemed to have the race locked up, is headed for trouble in the runoff because rural voters tend to vote in lower numbers if there aren’t also local races on the ballot (as will be the case in the runoff).
One thing that certainly is not a major issue in the election is the role of indigenous Guatemalans. Rigoberta Menchu, perhaps the world’s best known Guatemalan, became the first indigenous woman to run for president, but for a variety of reasons her candidacy never gained traction. She sits at about 3 percent in the polls and talks of continuing her movement in the next election.
Meanwhile, indigenous Guatemalans continue to get a raw deal: while poverty in general has fallen from 56 percent to 51 percent in the general population over the last five years, poverty has actually increased among the indigenous by a couple of points.
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