Guatemala holds elections to elect president and vice president for the period 2024

The voting centers in Guatemala opened this Sunday to hold general elections in the Central American country where the president and vice president for the period 2024-2028 will be defined, in addition to other authorities.

The initial flag for the civic day took place at 7:00 a.m. local time (1:00 p.m. GMT), in accordance with the regulations of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), and will last until 6:00 p.m. local time ( 00:00 GMT on Monday).

There are 9.3 million people authorized by the TSE to cast their vote in the eleventh edition of the elections since the implantation of democracy in 1986.

Experts, however, do not rule out a high percentage of vote abstentionism by the registered population, due to apathy for the political class.

In the 2019 elections, abstentionism was 39% and four years earlier, in 2015, it rose to 29%.

The main focus of attention is on the presidency, which according to surveys is contesting three traditional political candidates in the Central American country.

In total there are 3,482 voting centers installed throughout the territory, mostly in public schools, with 24,427 tables for the reception of suffrage in the 22 departments (provinces) of the nation presided over by Alejandro Giammattei.

Each voter is given five different colored ballot papers at the polling station so that they can secretly mark their vote for president and vice president; Municipal Hall; national deputies; deputies by region and legislators to the Central American Parliament.

Fight of three candidates

The survey by the firm Pro Datos, which was circulated in the local newspaper Prensa Libre days before the elections, detailed that the former first lady Sandra Torres (2008-2012) of the National Unity of Hope (UNE) will agree without problems to a second round since he has 21.3% of the voting intention.

Torres is competing for the presidency for the third consecutive time and in the previous two (2015 and 2019) he lost in the second round.

While the former United Nations diplomat Edmond Mulet (13.4%) and the conservative candidate Zury Rios Sosa (9.1%), daughter of the coup dictator Efrain Ríos Montt, are in second and third place in voting intentions, respectively, according to the same source.

19 other presidential candidates are also competing this Sunday. Among them are the opposition politician Manuel Villacorta of the Will, Opportunity and Solidarity (VOS) party, the pro-government deputy Manuel Conde of the Vamos government party, and the social democrat Bernardo Arevalo,

Both local analysts and international organizations have insisted that the electoral process has been irregular for various reasons, but mainly due to the arbitrary exclusion of three candidates: the indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, the son of former president Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen (1996- 2000), Roberto Arzu García-Granados, and businessman Carlos Pineda, leader of the polls.

In this context, a dozen international electoral observation missions went to Guatemala this Sunday to monitor the elections, including the delegations of the European Union (EU) and the Organization of American States (OAS).