[NYTr] Guatemalans choose president after bloody campaign

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Sep 9, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN08251127._CH_.2400


Guatemalans choose president after bloody campaign

By Mica Rosenberg

Guatemala City - Guatemalans vote on Sunday for a new president
following a campaign marred by the worst political violence since the
end of the country's civil war in 1996.

The two top contenders -- right-wing former Gen. Otto Perez Molina and
center-left businessman Alvaro Colom -- are unlikely to get the majority
support needed for an outright win, and a November runoff between them
is expected.

Perez Molina, a head of military intelligence during the 1960-1996 civil
war, has gained on front-runner Colom in recent polls, capitalizing on
the violence with his "strong fist" message against crime and
corruption.

Guatemala, a crossroads for Colombian cocaine moving though Central
America on its way to the United States, has one of the highest
homicide rates in the world with almost 6,000 people killed in the
country of 13 million last year. An inept justice system leaves most
crimes unsolved.

"Our proposal is to gradually increase the number of police," Perez
Molina said on Friday before campaigning officially ended. "But until
that happens, we are going to have to use the army to patrol the
streets."

He supports the death penalty and has said the government should
selectively declare a state of emergency in areas overrun by drug
traffickers and tattooed street gang members, blamed for a wave of
grisly killings.

Colom, a soft-spoken former deputy economy minister, says a vote for
Perez Molina would be a step backward into the dark days of Guatemala's
civil war that killed close to 250,000 people.

A U.N.-backed truth report blamed the army for 85 percent of the war-era
killings. Many of the victims were civilian Mayan peasants.

"Guatemala was ruled with a 'strong fist' for 50 years," said Colom
referring to the country's history of military rulers.

"Guatemalans have to decide if we are to return to abuse and perversion
of the law, or if we want to rely on the law to govern," Colom said in
a final campaign speech.

In the month before the expected runoff, both top candidates will be
vying to win supporters from President Oscar Berger's conservative GANA
coalition whose candidate, Alejandro Giammattei, is running third in
the polls. Perez Molina is expected to pick up much of that support.

ELECTION VIOLENCE

Colom's National Unity for Hope party lost 18 supporters in attacks
during the campaign, more than any other party. In all, 50 people were
killed.

Much of the bloodshed has come from powerful drug barons trying to force
their candidates into office. Guatemalans also vote on Sunday for a new
Congress and for hundreds of local officials.

In the eastern part of the country, several suspected drug dealers are
running for public office in an effort to gain control over key
trafficking routes.

Other killings have been rivals shooting each other. None of the cases,
which have touched almost all political parties, have been solved.

Marina Villegas, a 38-year-old Mayan teacher, said she backed Perez
Molina because of his promise to end violence and crime.

"Here men patrol the streets with machetes and clubs because there are
lots of street gangs and the police do nothing and people are afraid,"
she said at a Perez Molina rally in Santa Cruz de Quiche in the western
highlands.

On Friday, more than 1,000 people attended the burial of two activists
from San Raymundo, a town north of Guatemala City. They were shot to
death while distributing leaflets for Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Rigoberta Menchu's presidential bid.

Menchu, aiming to become Latin America's first indigenous woman
president, is running far behind in opinion polls.