GUATEMALA: Guatemalan voters queued up early to vote yesterday morning amid widespread fears that the ruling Republican Front Party (FRG) was planning acts of sabotage and violence to interfere with the electoral process.
Troops guarded electricity pylons and bridges while citizens stocked up on food and petrol and police patrolled city streets. Minutes after voting booths opened in the el Quiche district, in northern Guatemala, telephone and electricity services were interrupted.
Five million citizens were eligible to vote for presidential, congressional and mayoral candidates, although abstention rates are usually well over 50 per cent.
Mr Oscar Berger, presidential candidate for the right-wing Grand National Alliance (Gana), was tipped to win yesterday's first-round vote but seemed certain to fall short of the required 50 per cent plus one vote which would eliminate the need for a run-off ballot in December.
Mr Berger, known as the "Sugar King", is a member of the nation's business elite and enjoys the backing of Guatemala's aristocratic families, whose surnames (Skinner, Diesseldorf, Bosch, Aitkenhead) dominate the financial sector.
More importantly, Berger's chief political ally is a retired general, Mr Otto Perez Molina, whose "Patriotic Party" bears the symbol of the clenched fist, a reminder of who really pulls the punches in this country. Mr Berger faces serious competition from Mr Alvaro Colom, a textile millionaire who has climbed rapidly in the polls and displaced the FRG candidate, Mr Efrain Rios Montt, from second place. Mr Colom's running-partner is Mr Francisco Andrade, who was foreign minister under the brutal Humberto Mejia Victores regime (1983-86) and was subsequently appointed ambassador to the UN under President Vinicio Cerezo.
The outgoing president, Mr Alfonso Portillo, has left a legacy of violence and poverty, with 3,689 murders having been recorded last year in a country with a population of 12 million. Religious volunteers have reported starvation in rural districts while lawyers have initiated legal proceedings against President Portillo, who is accused of money-laundering, social security fraud and illicit use of state funds to help his party's presidential nominee.
The ruling party candidate, Mr Rios Montt, seized power in 1982 and launched a genocidal campaign against the indigenous people, destroying 440 villages in a 14-month spree which left 60,000 dead. The former head of congress resigned his parliamentary post to run for the presidency and will lose his immunity should he fail to qualify for the second-round run-off.
The election campaign has been marked by violence: 17 people, comprising party activists, priests, journalists and candidates, have been shot dead along the way, with a further 13 suffering gunshot wounds. Mr Colom's political secretary, Rolando Morales, was shot and injured at his home on Saturday evening, fuelling fears that yesterday's vote could turn bloody.
