Five points on Guatemala’s first round
Torres & Giammattei will face off in a second round scheduled for August
This analysis of Guatemala’s elections is going out to paying subscribers on Monday afternoon but will also be available online to non-subscribers later this week. Please feel free to forward to friends and colleagues. I appreciate comments, questions and feedback. Thank you for your support!
1. Two disliked and corrupt candidates will campaign in the runoff.
Sandra Torres, the former first lady, won approximately 25% of the vote, nearly all of it coming from rural areas of the country. While ten points ahead of her nearest competitor, polling also shows Torres has high unfavorability ratings and very low approval, particularly in urban areas. At the same time, fewer urban voters may show up with the highly contested Guatemala City mayoral race off the table, a factor that could help Torres. The former first lady will also hope to capitalize on a populist agenda that includes promises of greater government spending on a variety of government programs.
Alejandro Giammattei won approximately 14% of the vote and came in second place ahead of Eduardo Mulet and Thelma Cabrera, the only other two candidates to break double digits. Giammattei attempted to spin his experience as the country’s prison director into a positive message about going after criminals. Overshadowing his time in government were scandals involving prison massacres including one that used police hitmen to engage in extrajudicial executions. Giammattei will attempt to focus on Torres’s negative image to win the second round, but running on being not-Torres will not bring him any mandate for his agenda if he does win.
2. Torres’s UNE will lead a divided Congress.
Torres’s UNE party took 44 seats in the 160 member legislature, representing the largest group by far. Giammattei’s Vamos, a brand new party, won 17 seats. No other party won more than ten seats.
This will make for a difficult coalition building process no matter which candidate wins in the second round. While some of these parties have natural alliances, coalition building will still require pork projects and backroom deals.
Both UNE and Vamos have questionable campaign finance sources, meaning both may face investigation and both may work to shut down any anti-corruption investigations.
Graphic from Prensa Libre
3. The anti-corruption effort loses.
Even before the first vote was cast, this election was already a loss for the anti-corruption movement due to the politicized disqualification of candidates Thelma Aldana and Zury Rios. In a country where a significant number of candidates accept illicit campaign financing, there was a blatant effort to ban the two candidates who, while very different from each other, represented points of views that were different from and would have undermined the current pact of corrupt politicians running the country. Semilla and Valor, the parties linked to Aldana and Rios, picked up very few seats in the Congress.
Beyond the presidential candidate disqualifications, a number of other candidates at the mayoral level were linked to illicit campaign financing, corruption and/or drug money and were not removed from the ballot. The OAS noted reports of voter intimidation and threats made on election day including one voting station that had to be shut down due to violence. At least two election officials were forced to flee their jobs in the week prior to the vote due to threats.
Both Torres and Giammattei oppose the renewal of the CICIG. Both have scandals in their past that could arguably be prosecuted. In a country where anti-corruption is the top political issue and a majority of voters wanted to elect someone to prosecute corrupt politicians, this run-off is going to force many to decide whether there is a “less bad” option between two candidates who are disliked by anti-corruption activists. No matter which candidate wins, the next president will face a legitimacy problem from the very start due to many voters feeling neither option represents their point of view.
4. Guatemala City Mayor reelected in spite of corruption allegations.
Ricardo Quiñonez was reelected mayor of Guatemala City, defeating Roberto Gonzalez by narrow margin (38% to 35%). Last week, prosecutors attempted to strip the Quiñonez of his immunity due to an ongoing corruption case against the mayor and his Unionist Party for illegal campaign financing.
The governance of Guatemala City impacts the economy of the country as well as the president’s political stability, meaning the next president’s relationship with Quiñonez matters and he or she may be tempted to bring the mayor in to political deals. That is especially true under a hypothetical Torres administration given the significant anti-Torres sentiment in the capital that she will feel the need to neutralize or repress.
5. The polls were correct.
Given the fact the polling turned out to be accurate in the first round, analysts should give credence to the second round polling, which is generally easier with only two candidates.
There is often discussion of polling misses, but let’s give a hand to CID-Gallup, which nailed the first round results in a very difficult elections. Here were some of the factors making the polling situation difficult:
There were multiple candidates polling relatively close to each other, with no candidate polling above 30% at any point this election.
More than a quarter of the electorate saw their preferred candidate disqualified in the months before the election.
Anger at corruption and candidate disqualifications meant a majority of voters were undecided, not talking or refusing to vote just a week before the election.
There is a major urban-rural divide and a real challenge in weighting the votes to capture rural voters who are less connected and harder to reach.