Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

Elections Unlikely to Bring Change to Guatemala

Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 22 2011 (IPS) - Guatemalans will go to the polls to elect a new government in September. But the failure to implement in-depth reforms in the political system, including a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, means structural changes that could improve the social and economic situation are unlikely, according to experts and political leaders.

Some believe that nothing will really change under the government in office from 2012 to 2016, from the current administration of social democratic President Álvaro Colom. “We’ll have a new face as president, but the system will carry on just the same,” anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez told IPS.

The reason, the expert said, is that the rules of the game have remained intact. “Political parties have owners, and are still financed by the economic élite; non-governmental organisations help us monitor the abusive, dishonest and inhuman ways in which they buy the votes of the poor,” she said.

Guatemalans will vote in September to elect a president and vice president for the next four years, all 153 members of the single-chamber Congress, 20 representatives to the Central American Parliament and 333 municipal governments.

The presidential candidates leading the opinion polls are Otto Pérez Molina of the rightwing Patriot Party, and Sandra Torres of the governing centre-left National Union of Hope, in spite of the experts’ view that her presidential bid is unconstitutional, because she is Colom’s wife.

Velásquez said Guatemala could be transformed if profound reforms of the system were undertaken, such as convening a national constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution.

“To begin with, the nature of this truly multicultural country should be recognised, and the issues of land reform and full participation by indigenous people, as well as fiscal policy, need to be addressed. It would be a beautiful and healthy exercise for Guatemala, which is bogged down in its post-war state,” said Velásquez, a Quiché Indian.

Guatemala has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world. About 80 percent of the farmland is owned by five percent of the population, while half of the country’s 14 million people live in poverty and 17 percent are indigent (extremely poor), according to United Nations statistics.

Independent leftwing lawmaker Aníbal García told IPS “the political, economic and social model is exhausted” and no longer works, which is why a constituent assembly is needed “to create a new pluricultural and democratic republic.”

In institutional terms, the Supreme Court must recover its full independence, “so that we have authorities and bodies that are completely disconnected from the dictates of economic and political power,” he said.

At present, for example, the country’s president appoints the head of the public prosecutor’s office, which coordinates criminal investigations in Guatemala. This undermines the institution’s independence, according to human rights organisations.

This can only be remedied by amending article 251 of the constitution, but to do so would require reviewing the entire constitution and then ratifying it by means of a national referendum.

As for political aspects, “new rules of political representation are needed,” because at the moment, elections consist of voting for party lists of candidates. In addition, “party expenses need to be made transparent, and the economic model needs to be freed from constitutional barriers that prevent thorough tax reforms,” García said.

The Guatemalan constitution was reformed during the government of President Ramiro de León Carpio (1993-1996). After the 1996 peace agreement that put an end to 36 years of civil war, an attempt was made to amend it by introducing recognition for the Maya, Garifuna and Xinca peoples.

However, the proposed reform failed in the 1999 referendum, which had a turnout of barely 18.5 percent of the electorate.

In 2009 a far-right group, ProReforma, pushed for the amendment of 73 articles of the constitution, seeking at least two-thirds of the votes in Congress, followed by a referendum for ratification. But their proposal was never debated in the legislature, mainly due to rejection of the idea of appointing judges for life and senators for 15-year terms.

Catalina Soberanis, of the Central American Institute for Political Studies, told IPS “the way things stand today, we cannot expect any major changes from the forthcoming elections, because none of the rules have changed.”

As part of national restructuring, the country must achieve consensus to move ahead on fiscal policy, the system of political parties, citizen security, rural development and dealing with climate change, among other issues, Soberanis said.

For instance, “the parties should encourage greater participation by sectors of the population that are at a great disadvantage for participating at present, like women, young people and indigenous people,” she said.

Virgilio Álvarez of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) said that in Guatemala “the state must be reconstituted.”

“The political classes should reclaim their autonomy and independence, and cease answering to powerful economic interests,” he told IPS.

He said that at present “no single dominant group in the oligarchy is fighting for government power; instead, there are several, all with the same aspiration, which shows that politics depends on economics.”

In any case, “an election always opens up opportunities for making changes that are positive for the country,” Álvarez concluded.