This blog entry is a bit off-topic for me, as electoral politics is not my "jam", and my research in Guatemala does not focus on this. Nonetheless, electoral politics are hard to ignore in Guatemala, as the political parties (often 25 or 30 of them) start campaigning for the next election almost immediately after one has concluded, and the posters and other forms of propaganda are fairly omnipresent. Also, although I'm not a political scientist and don't have a profound analysis of Guatemalan partisan politics, they do shape the larger context of my work here - the main areas right now being historical memory and the representation of the armed conflict in monuments and museums, and migration; the larger theme is the relationship between indigenous peoples and the state. To just make the connections clear, for anyone who hasn't been following my blog or my work, most consider the 36-year long armed conflict as a genocide as the vast majority (over 80%) of the victims were indigenous Mayans. Pretty much everyone except certain sectors of the Guatemalan political and economic elite and the military, There is no national monument to the victims of the armed conflict, and the efforts to hold the state accountable for the massacres, forced disapperances and extrajudicial killings have met with mixed success. A case in point was the genocide trial of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity for massacres, rapes, and torture of Maya Ixil people. The right wing took to the streets claiming "No hubo genocidio" (there was no genocide). The verdict was undone and a new trial ordered, but Ríos Montt died before it was concluded.
There are monuments and memorials but these are mostly private initiatives by survivors and victims' families in the affected communities. And in some areas the elected officials have not been supportive of these initiatives.
Guatemalan migration to the U.S. is largely indigenous migration -- at least the migration of the last 15 or 20 years, The reasons for this have to do with the state's historic neglect of the indigenous population -- which may be the majority of the country's population. One only need look at the UN development program's reports to see the huge disparities in health, education, income, literacy, and infrastructure that hew largely along racial lines. There are few jobs and little opportunities for advancement; in many areas, families struggle to stay afloat, and children's education is often curtailed for economic reasons.On top of this, many of the so-called development initiatives that are imposed on these communities (usually without free and informed consent) are extractive in nature -- mining, hydroelectric dams, palm oil plantations, many of which involve displacement of the indigenous residents. The lack of economic opportunities in rural indigenous communities -- few jobs, substandard education - lead a lot of young people to leave "por la necesidad" (out of necessity). And so the majority of recent Guatemalan migrants to the U.S. are indigenous Maya.
Therefore, who is in power in Guatemala has a lot to do with both the larger historical forces that have shaped Maya people's lives, and with the everyday struggles that lead many to migrate. So, in order to have this broader understanding, I do need to pay attention to politics - who is in power, what kinds of policies are proposed and implemented.
There has not ever been a successful indigenous candidacy at the national level -- and there are few indigenous representatives in the Guatemalan congress. Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú was a candidate in the past but never gained more than a few percentage points in the first round. Since there are literally dozens of parties fielding candidates for president, the presidential elections in Guatemala always go to a second round, where the top two vote-getters from the first round face off. Thelma Cabrera, an indigenous leader from the peasant organization CODECA (Comité de Desarrollo Campesino, or Peasant Development Committee), was the most successful indigenous presidential candidate -- she came in 4th in the 2019 elections. Most independent observers think that there was widespread fraud (vote-buying and other irregularities are pretty common in Guatemalan elections) and that Cabrera would probably have come in 2nd if there hadn't been. Cabrera attempted to run again in 2023 but was disqualified by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (hardly a neutral body).
While Bernardo Arévalo is hardly indigenous, once Thelma Cabrera was out of the race, indigenous communities began to rally behind his candidacy. He is the son of a former president who served during the 10-year period (1944-1954) usually referred to as the "Guatemalan spring" (la primavera Guatemalteca), a decade of democracy which began with the "October Revolution" in 1944 that toppled a military dictatorship, and ended with the CIA-backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 (leading to more military dictatorships). The current Arévalo campaigned on a reform and anti-corruption platform, no small feat in a country where previous presidents actively undermined anti-corruption efforts, were themselves the targets of anti-corruption investigations (think there's a connection?), and one (Otto Pérez Molina) had his term cut short by a corruption scandal and was convicted and is currently serving a prison sentence.
Arévalo ran on the ticket of a newly-formed party, Semilla (seed). The fact that the party was newly-formed is not in itself notable; political parties in Guatemala come and go with almost alarming frequency (cue in Boy George singing "Karma Chameleon"). Every election cycle there are new parties - but they are often the same political actors under a new label (hence the song "Karma Chameleon" is quite apt). came in second during the first round of voting in June, but won the second round in August in a landslide. His opponent was the ex-wife of a former president, Sandra Torres -- possibly ex in name only; when she first ran for president in 2011, several election cycles ago, she divorced her husband who was then President because of a law that prohibited the spouses of current presidents from running for that office.
Arévalo came in second in the first round of voting in June 2023, but he won the second round in August by a landslide (over 60% of the votes). But no sooner were the votes were counted than the opposition started a campaign to prevent Arévalo and his vice president, Karin Herrera, from assuming office in January. The attorney general Consuelo Porras brought spurious legal charges against Arévalo; the Supreme Electoral Tribunal suspended the registration of Semilla, Arévalo's political party.
In response, on October 2, indigenous leaders from the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán (and others) called for a national strike (paro nacional), and the epicenter of the protest was a key highway intersection known as Cuatro Caminos (4 roads). This is a major stop on the main highway, the Inter-Americano, where it intersects with the highway that leads from the city of Totonicapán and the road that leads to Xela (Quetzaltenango), the second largest city in the country. There were blockades and protests in other parts of the country over the next two weeks, including in the capital city. On October 16, there were caravans and marches to the headquarters of the Ministerio Público (public prosecutor), in the neighborhood of Gerona in Guatemala City, and that is where the movement established itself for the next few months.
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