GUATEMALA-ELECTIONS: Healthy Variety or Weakened Democracy?

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint | | Print |

Fabiana Frayssinet

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 7 1995 (IPS) - The 19 presidential candidates standing for Guatemala’s forthcoming elections have been unable to awaken voters from their apathy, as surveys predict that up to 60 percent will stay home on Nov. 12.

The salsa, merengue, lambada and rap rhythms of campaign jingles, and the colourful balloons and firecrackers at the sparsely attended rallies that put an end to pre-election activity on Tuesday do not seem to have moved the electorate, who five days from now will cast their ballots for their third civilian president since democracy was reestablished in 1986.

Nevertheless, analysts see the wide diversity of parties as a positive sign. According to Gabriel Aguilera at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, the large number of parties the 3.7 million voters will choose between is a sign of a strengthening of democracy.

Aguilera says the diversity of parties should be understood against the background of an authoritarian past, during which a tightly restrictive electoral legislation prohibited the free formation of political organisations.

“In that period – in the framework of the 1965 Constitution – it was difficult to organise a party. For a long time there were only four,” he pointed out.

In the year 1985, lawmakers decided to open the door to the formation of parties by means of constitutional reforms. Since then, the number of parties in Guatemala has steadily grown, with eight participating in the last elections in 1990.

“If in the future we have 30 parties like in India, it could turn out to be negative in the long-run. But for now I think it is necessary to go through this phase, above all so no collective actor feels excluded,” Aguilera added.

But while the diversity of parties may be a sign of strengthened democracy, high levels of voter abstention are not.

National Alliance candidate Fernando Andrade pointed out to IPS that apathy has grown steadily over the past decade. While 68 percent of voters came out in 1985, only 55 percent cast their ballots in 1990.

“And last year disaster hit, with 80 percent abstention, which to some extent delegitimised the system.”

The candidate for the National Alliance, comprised of the Christian Democratic Party, the Union of National Centre and the Democratic Socialist Party, attributes the apathy to the “population’s enormous frustration.

“The people of this nation are incredible and brave. They are always ready to confront moments of crisis, they want to move forward, to advance, but perhaps the system itself has deteriorated. We have to recover confidence in basic values, and trust in the system.

“State institutions have lost credibility because we distort them,” Andrade added, in a veiled criticism of President Ramiro De Leon Carpio.

Guatemalan Republican Front candidate Alfonso Portillo agrees with Andrade, with whom he is disputing second place in opinion polls.

“People are disenchanted with the democratic system. The only thing the last three governments have done is to shatter hopes for democracy. People don’t want to participate. They want to see their needs satisfied; they want jobs, education, healthcare, and there isn’t any of that.”

Portillo, who is running for the party of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt (1982-83), says government has become a means for politicians to amass personal wealth.

“People hear the word ‘politics’ and associate it with stagnation, corruption, favouritism, inefficiency and incapacity,” he said, stressing that recovering credibility “will be very costly.”

If the administration that will be in power from 1996 to the end of the century “fails to deal with the country’s major problems, even at a high political price, democracy will fail in Guatemala,” he warned.

Meanwhile, like other candidates, poll favourite Alvaro Arzu, who represents the National Advance Party, has campaigned on the slogan that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are no longer left nor right-wing ideologies.

“I’m not neoliberal as some enemies like to brand me. We advocate a market social policy,” claims Arzu, who says “no to discrimination, no to privileges, and security seen as access to a dignified life.”

GUATEMALA-ELECTIONS: Healthy Variety or Weakened Democracy?

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint | | Print |

Fabiana Frayssinet

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov 7 1995 (IPS) - The 19 presidential candidates standing for Guatemala’s forthcoming elections have been unable to awaken voters from their apathy, as surveys predict that up to 60 percent will stay home on Nov. 12.
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