GUATEMALA-ELECTIONS: The Resurgence of the Left

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint | | Print |

Fabiana Frayssinet

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 10 1995 (IPS) - This Sunday’s elections in Guatemala mark the end of the transition to democracy initiated in 1986. But they also represent a new beginning: the resurgence of the political left, which had been crushed by past dictatorships.

The new democratic left is represented by a coalition made up of indigenous and student groups, unions, and peasant and human rights organisations.

The alliance has a number of popular leaders, including Rosalina Tuyuc of the National Coordinating Group of Guatemalan Widows, Byron Morales with the Union of Syndical and Popular Action, and Nineth Montenegro with the Mutual Support Group, that brings together family members of people who were “disappeared” by security forces for political reasons.

“It is the resurrection of the left, but in a quite pragmatic form,” Jorge Gonzalez, presidential candidate for the New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG), told IPS.

“The hope of a democratic left is reemerging, but with a new ingredient: the participation of the Mayan people. That is what gives this alliance strength,” said Gonzalez, who has been an economic consultant to the United Nations in Mexico since 1990.

According to the candidate, “left and right probably have no meaning in the world view” of the Mayan ethnic group, which accounts for over half of the country’s population.

“But they want to see an end to repression; they want participative democracy; and they want to own their land, while we are talking about a kind of agrarian reform. I believe those three elements form part of a leftist tendency.”

Gonzalez, former president of Guatemala’s Central Bank, made an attempt to define the ideology of the FDNG in “western terms. As former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt would have said, it is a little bit to the left of centre. In Latin America, it would be classified as the democratic left – in other words, we prefer votes to bullets.”

A poll by the Association of Social Studies and Research released this week reveals that the coalition’s popularity grew from 0.9 percent in October to 3.9 percent in November, putting it in fifth place among the 19 parties that will participate in the elections. In rural areas, the party’s share was 4.5 percent.

According to Gonzalez, such numbers could fall short, because after three decades of repression, Guatemalans are afraid to express their opinions. And that is particularly true since the government and the army began to accuse the FDNG of being “the party of the URNG” – the insurgent Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity.

In a move without precedents in the country’s recent history, the URNG declared a ceasefire during the electoral period, and announced that it supports a “small” democratic political party made up of popular organisations – a description that fits the FDNG.

Nevertheless, the party denies any ties to the guerrillas.

“Perhaps when you are young, you think the guerrillas can offer a solution. But the guerrillas are by definition a force against the established system, and we do not accept violent methods as a route to power,” said Gonzalez.

He pointed out that one of the accords in the current peace talks between the government and the URNG provides for the incorporation of that group as a legal political party.

Gonzalez said the FDNG has three aims: reaching an end to the peace dialogue that began in 1991, and putting the accords into effect; true participative democracy that includes the country’s indigenous majority; and a radical “but progressive, calm and non- violent shift in the socioeconomic policy that has been followed.

“In short, the abandonment of this foolish neoliberal tendency in a country as poor as Guatemala, in order to eradicate poverty,” which holds 85 percent of the population in its grip.

The FDNG emerged out of the Assembly of Civil Society, which was created to contribute to discussion of the main issues on the agenda of the peace talks.

“That is where the common interests of the various sectors were identified – of peasants, unions, the Mayan people, women, university students and professionals,” said Gonzalez.

Poll favourite for Sunday’s elections is former mayor and foreign minister Alvaro Arzu, the candidate for the right-wing National Advance Party. He is followed by Alfonso Portillo, who is standing for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt’s Guatemalan Republican Front.

National legislation stipulates that the winning candidate must take an absolute majority of the votes. That means the parties could face off in a second round.

But the FDNG does not plan to join forces with any other party in an eventual second poll: “I have my doubts that we could find someone to associate ourselves with in the other 18 options, due to the nature of our programme.

“There is the fascist right, the business right, the dilettante right, the violent right, but unfortunately all of our adversaries represent the anti-revolution in one form or another,” said Gonzalez.