Center-leftist leads general in Guatemala vote

Source: Reuters

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Center-leftist Alvaro Colom held a wide lead in Guatemala's presidential election on Sunday over a retired general who wants to use the army and emergency laws to fight a brutal crime wave.

Colom, a soft-spoken factory owner, had almost 59 percent of the vote while Gen. Otto Perez Molina had just over 41 percent, with almost a quarter of polling stations counted.

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It is the third attempt to win the presidency for Colom, who accused Perez Molina during campaigning of seeking to take Guatemala back to the dark days of the Cold War when the powerful military systematically abused human rights.

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"We have had a strong hand for 50 years and it caused more than 250,000 victims in a dirty war," Colom, 56, said.

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Read more: http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-11-05T020552Z_01_N03610855_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-GUATEMALA-ELECTION-COL.XML

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Although it is difficult to predict exactly how much to the left Colom will govern, it is the first time in Guatemala's recent history that not an extreme right winger will head the country. Colom is winning by a landslide, let's just hope the difference keeps up once all the votes are counted.

:party: :party: :party:

Guatemala's had enough shit for a couple generations.

Over 85% of the votes are in though.

That's close enough to steal, and you know they're going to try.

With 99.13% of the votes in, Colom has 52.83%, against 47.17% for Otto Pérez Molina.

We won. :party: :party: :party:

in the campaign, as they knocked of 50 candidates or candidates associates or family members.

It was looking EXACTLY as if old "Iron Fist" had this one in the bag.

If only Colom will have every chance to last, in good health, accident and murder free, throughout his elected term. Guatemala needs a break away from radical, genocidal, barbaric right-wing rule.

I have learned to fear the worst when "late returns" skew overwhelmingly to the right.

Going from an 18% lead to a 4% lead is a pretty big drop.
Could be that Colom had more support in urban areas and their votes got added to the totals first.
Could be that Colom really won by a landslide and the attempt to steal the election fell short.
Could be some of both.

It's great that he won.

The anti-Chavez people on DU are already warming up to call Colom another Chavez.

--an end to U.S.-dominated "free trade" (global corporate predation; sweatshop labor; resource theft).

--eviction of World Bank/IMF loan sharks.

--end to the phony, corrupt, murderous U.S. "war on drugs," and consequent reduction is the illicit drugs and weapons trade, and an end to U.S. militarization of the country.

--free medical care for all Guatemalans.

--free education through university, for all Guatemalans.

--an end to illiteracy.

--land reform, help to small farmers, food self-sufficiency.

--grants and loans to small businesses and worker co-ops.

--end to entrenched rightwing corruption and brutality; more community oriented, professional (and less corrupt) police force.

--membership in the Bank of the South, for social-justice friendly regional loans.

--the help and cooperation of other leftist, and forward-looking, Latin American countries in regional development projects.

--active encouragement of widespread citizen participation in government and politics.

--end of bullying, interference and support for the fascist elite by the U.S.

--membership in the coming Latin American "Common Market."

--strengthening of all democratic institutions.

--investigation and prosecution of the many political murders (at least 50) in the current election campaigns.

--and many other benefits of the far-thinking, insightful, peaceful, democratic Bolivarian Revolution.

--and, in particular, for Guatemala, redress, at long last, with regard to the 200,000 Mayan villagers who were slaughtered in the 1980s, with Reagan's complicity; if not investigation, prosecution and jail (which may not be possible due to the provisions of the UN "truth and reconciliation" process), at least economic restitution and banning the perpetrators from ever holding public office again.

However, Colom is not Hugo Chavez. He seems to be a pretty good guy--especially compared to his opposition (former death squad leader)--more in the Clinton "trickle down" economics mode (trusting of global corporate predators and "free trade"). But I admit I don't know much about his policies. He will likely be the best Guatemala has ever seen, on human rights. He has a very interesting running mate--a highly paid surgeon in Houston, native Guatemalan, works in Houston, but divides his time, and does free surgeries for the poor at home.

I would love to see Guatemala's terrible grief end at last, and a peaceful and successful leftist revolution. But it's a lot to expect. The country has been ravaged, economically, and it rivals Colombia for violence, most of it connected to rightwing thuggery and the drug trade. A stolen election is not, by any means, out of the question, at this point.

4% is not a very safe margin, in a high stakes election for the Bush Junta. And remember what Fox, Calderon and the Bush Junta did in Mexico--where it came down to a razor thin margin, and the leftist (Amlo) "lost" by only a hairsbreadth--0.05%--in a highly contested, and probably stolen, election (with electronic central tabulators involved, connected to Calderon's brother). Immediately upon being elected, Calderon sent federal police into Oaxaca, to crush the six months long, peaceful teachers' union protest, and cs gassed the whole town, coming in on the side of the fascist governor (another stolen election) whose rightwing paramilitaries had kidnapped, tortured and killed dozens of peaceful protesters--and shot U.S. indy journalist and photographer Brad Will dead on the street. (He filmed his killers as he died--gunmen connected to the governor--but no one has been prosecuted.)

I believe that what the Bush Junta (and its DLC colluders) want is a number of highly exploited, rightwing-run, buffer countries (or client states) between the U.S. and the Bolivarian Revolution (in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Nicaragua) and against the strong leftist tide throughout South America (including also Brazil, Uruguay and Chile). The buffer states are Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Columbia, and (recently acquired, through the CAFTA vote), Costa Rica, which is about to have its wealth and labor force ravaged by global corporate predators. They don't want any examples of the success of leftist policy within shouting (or is it whispering?) distance of the U.S. I think that what worries them more than anything is that we will get ideas up here in the north about democracy free of corporate rule--ideas like transparent elections, economic fairness, and our political leaders serving the people.

So, don't get your hopes up just yet, for poor Guatemala. The fascists will stop at nothing to retain and expand their power. And even if Colom gets elected, gradual improvement is more likely than any new and transforming Bolivarian vision.

Exactly... and not only in human rights, as far as I know and remember, it is the first non-right wing government in Guatemala's history, that has always been known by the terrible extreme right wing military regimes.

:kick:

and his fascist gang are. Thank God Guatemala has been spared rule by Molina!

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Guatemala candidate accuses rival of death threats

By Mica Rosenberg | October 17, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2007/10/17/guatemala_candidate_accuses_rival_of_death_threats/

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I knew of Molina's background (from Judi Lynn), but I didn't know how naked his brutal fascism has been in this campaign. He mirrors the political murders, and the murders in the streets, and I'm beginning to think he may have instigated some of it. And I wonder, too, if he had help from the Bush Junta. (What's Rumsfeld doing these days? This is just the sort of civil chaos and blood and gore that he feeds on.)

Colom says he got numerous death threats that he knows came from Molina's campaign.

"'We hope these incidents ... aren't part of a psychological war designed with military tactics,' Colom's spokesman said in a written statement."

Whose best at THAT kind of strategy? And why does it seem so hauntingly familiar?

material people should be able to learn in order to have any grasp of what's going on there at all, and it is always suppressed. It's a natural miracle that it has been allowed to surface in the U.S. at all.

This paragraph is so important:

Perez Molina was the head of military intelligence during Guatemala's 36-year civil war. He worked in a specialized unit known for orchestrating misinformation campaigns, according to a U.N.-backed truth commission report published after the peace accords.

A propaganda specialist. One of the surviving candidates who ran for the Presidency, after so many others were slaughtered, or otherwise intimidated by having their family members or campaign workers murdered.

I hope something goes right and his ties to the _Bush administration are revealed in the days ahead. We already know his fascist Ríos Montt employer got full material and other support from Ronald Reagan, and even U.S. evangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in his purges of entire native Guatemalan villages by U.S. trained death squads.

Be brave and do great things for your people, Sr. Colom. Do not shrink in fear from the fascists, but show them another way.