Millions of Guatemalans cast ballots Sunday in a general election to choose a new president, vice president, 158 members of congress and 338 mayors in the Central American country. A runoff election was widely expected, as none of the 14 presidential candidates was likely to gather 50% of the vote plus one needed.
Guatemala, a country of 15 million, is in the middle of a political crisis detonated by a corruption scandal that has prompted the resignation of its president, vice president and more than a dozen Cabinet members, ministers and government officials.
Otto Pérez Molina, 64, submitted his resignation as President on Thursday, two days after the Guatemalan congress voted in favor of stripping the former military commander of his prosecutorial immunity as head of state. The unanimous vote was 132-0 on Tuesday. Pérez Molina is now in custody.
Roxana Baldetti, his 53-year-old former vice president, resigned on May 8 and is also behind bars. According to the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office and a U.N. investigating commission, Pérez Molina, Baldetti and a group of close aides within his administration received bribes in exchange for lowering taxes for companies seeking to import products into Guatemala, accusations they have both categorically denied.
Alejandro Maldonado, 79, who was vice president under Pérez Molina, was sworn in as his successor Thursday. He had only been vice president since May when he took over after Baldetti’s resignation. He’s asked for the resignation of the entire Cabinet.
Large protests in capital city
Guatemala City had seen protests demanding the resignation of the president and vice president since April 16 when the alleged corruption scheme was made public by authorities. Tens of thousands of people protested at Constitution Square in Guatemala City on August 27 in what has been described by Guatemalan media as the largest demonstration so far this year.
Three presidential candidates were leading the polls: Manuel Baldizón, 45, a businessman with the Renewed Democratic Liberty Party; Jimmy Morales, 46, and actor and comedian with National Convergence; and Sandra Torres, 59, of the National Unity for Hope. Torres was Guatemala’s first lady from 2008 to 2011. She has since divorced former President Álvaro Colom.
Gabriel Wer, a student at Rafael Landívar University in Guatemala City and a leader of the Justice Now Movement, cast his ballot dressed in black, his way of showing the current political system in his country is dead.
“We’re in mourning because we know the electoral system we have nowadays is not the best, it’s not the one we could have and it’s not the one we deserve,” Huer told CNN en Español. “We wanted to show in a very visible way that we’re outraged with this situation, with a process that has been corrupted. There are more 1,400 candidates being investigated who are still running [out of a total of 23,497].”
Álvaro Montenegro, another member of Justice Now, said voters chose different ways of protesting corruption in his country.
“Many people called for annulling votes. Others called for leaving ballots blank. Other voters were casting ballots for the small parties, rejecting polls and choosing a candidate that was not among the leaders,” Montenegro said.
Sunday’s was Guatemala’s eighth election since the Central American country returned to democracy after a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996.
Altogether, Guatemalan voters were choosing nearly 4,000 elected officials at almost 3,000 polling places around the country. There are 7.5 million registered voters in Guatemala.