2023 Guatemala General Elections - June 25th (2nd Round: August 20th)

[MRCVzla]

General elections in Guatemala are going to be held TOMORROW, President and Vicepresident are 4-year term limited without reelection, if tomorrow in the 1st round no candidate wins above 50%+1 of the votes, a 2nd round with the runner-up will be held on August 20th, for the Parliament they will renovate their unicameral 160-seat Congress (32 by nationwide list, 128 by 11 constituencies).

22 candidates with their VP formulas are on the presidential ballot, the campaign has been plagued by Guatemalan Supreme Court banning some top candidates leaving doubts around the process.

Three have serious possibilites to be on the ballotage with other one having some momentum in the polls: again like in 2015 and 2019, the main favorite to lead in the 1st round seems to be the former first lady Sandra Torres of the populist social-democrat UNE, along her, the daughter of the late former dictador Efraín Rios Montt, Zury Ríos standing with the support of the parties VALOR (populist, right-wing) and Unionist (conservative) and diplomat Edmond Mulet with his party CABAL (liberal, centre-right), rising in the polls is Manuel Villacorta also kind of diplomat being a former ambassador in Israel and getting 5% in the 2019 election, Villacorta is running with his own party VOS (Will, Oportunity and Solidarity) with centre-left background and also being a split from UNE.

With less options but still between the top-5 is lawyer Manuel Conde Orellana from the incumbent President Alejando Giammatei' rulling party VAMOS (conservative, centre-right), Giammatei end his term with low popularity (being a constant norm of recent Guatemalan presidents, some ended up in jail for corruption). Also at least getting a "good performance" (being above 5%) is Bernardo Arévalo of the centre-left Movimiento Semilla, another businessman Armando Castillo of the VIVA party (center-right) or Amílcar Rivera of the Victory party (christian, right-wing)

Between the candidates banned in controversial decisions, were businessman Carlos Pineda with is Citizen Prosperity movement (populist, centre-right) who was leading the opinion polls before his candidacy was suspended by the courts on May 19, also disqualified was the candidature of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera of the left-wing MLP or the businessman Roberto Arzú of the Podemos party (conservative, right-wing)

My prediction, 2nd round between Torres and a right-wing candidate, right-wing candidate wins 2nd round and his/her presidency may ended up being unpopular and corrupt, and so on... (?)

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1672706643392430081

[MRCVzla]

The election day happened with incidents and accusations of fraud, the votes are counting, are there's a surprise, Bernardo Arévalo from SEMILLA (son of a former left-wing president) is currently going in 2nd place behind UNE' Sandra Torres, still more than 1/3 of the acts counted so this gonna take a while, Mulet and Zury Ríos currently outperforming and VAMOS' Conde getting a "good" result, but most of this i suppose are very rural so in the late count should be more urban/Guatemala City votes, enough for some right-wing candidate to still make the runoff

Under total valid votes
UNE (Torres) 19.9%
SEMILLA (Arévalo) 16.2%
VAMOS (Conde) 10.9%
VIVA (Castillo) 9.8%
CABAL (Mulet) 9.2%
VALOR/UNIONISTA (Ríos) 8.9%
VOS (Villacorta) 5.7%
BIEN (Giovanny Reyes, libcon populist) 3.4%

Acts processed: 38.8%
Turnout: 57.2%
Valid votes: 75.3%
Blank votes: 7.2%
Null/void votes: 17.5%

Election results site: https://www.trep.gt/#!/tc1/ENT

[MRCVzla]

It's pretty much confirmed, the divided right-wing establishment has been defeated for now even using the Justice to barring up popular candidates, Torres (populist christian left) and Arévalo (progressive soclib) are going to the runoff, opinion polls were very wrong as their favorites Mulet and Ríos flopped, Guatemalan people clearly said enough. Counting has processed very fast than I expected.

UNE (Torres) 20.5%
SEMILLA (Arévalo) 15.8%
-----------------------------
VAMOS (Conde) 10.4%
VIVA (Castillo) 9.7%
CABAL (Mulet) 8.9%
VALOR/UNIONISTA (Ríos) 8.8%
VOS (Villacorta) 5.8%
BIEN (Reyes) 3.4%
VICTORIA (Rivera) 3.2%
Others 13.6%

Acts processed: 95.5%
Turnout: 60.3%
Valid votes: 75.6%
Blank votes: 7.0%
Null votes: 17.4%

CONGRESS NATIONWIDE LIST (95% processed)
VAMOS 15.1% (6)
UNE 12.6% (5)
SEMILLA 11.9% (5)
CABAL 9.0% (3)
VIVA 7.0% (3)
VALOR/UNIONISTA 5.5% (2)
VOS 4.5% (1)
TODOS 4.1% (christian/right-wing populist) (1)
URNG-MAIZ/WINAQ (indigenous left) 3.2% (1)
PPN (right-wing UNE split co-founded by Sandra Torres' daughter) 3.1% (1)
VICTORIA 2.8% (1)
BIEN 2.7% (1)
AZUL (conservative, led by pro-Israel businessman Isaac Farchi) 2.4% (1)
ELEFANTE (catch-all populist, linked to former President Alfonso Portillo) 2.3% (1)
Other parties without seat in this constituency 13.7% (along them, Arzú' Podemos 2.1%, libcon CREO 2.0% or Thelma Cabrera' MLP 1.8%)

Valid votes 75.1% / Blank 9.9% / Null 15.0%

[MRCVzla]

Preliminary results for Congress: Giammatei' party VAMOS will be the first minority with 40 seats, followed by UNE (27), Semilla (24), Cabal (18), Valor/Unionista (13), VIVA (9), Todos (6), PP Nosotros (5), Bien (4), VOS (4), Victoria (3), CREO (3) and with 1 seat each: Azul, Cambio, Elefante Community and Winaq-URNG. Either Torres and Arévalo will have to do agreements to pass their laws.

[MRCVzla]

Two updates, Guatemalan' Supreme Court ruled against the right-wing parties who wanted to appeal the 1st round results, meaning the OK to the Electoral Court to validate the results
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1678554983648878593

Despite this, the right-wing establishment tries to get away with it in form of a judge orders the suspension of the "Bernie" Arévalo' Semilla Movement party register (violating the Constitution as the Electoral and Political Parties Law says a suspension of a  party' register can only happen six months AFTER the whole electoral process ended), the Electoral Court anyway confirmed the Torres-Arévalo runoff in the middle of this another "electoral coup" attempt.
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1679295914626916353

[MRCVzla]

The second round between Sandra Torres and Bernardo Arévalo is tomorrow, despite the judicial and State persecution from the Public Ministry against Arévalo' Semilla Movement (and the TSE), the Supreme Court today has ruled in favor of Semilla, granting a Amparo in the case of the suspension of the party registration until at least after Sunday.

The latest polls prior to election day indicate that Arévalo would win with even more than 60%, capitalizing on the anti-corruption vote and discontent against the "corrupt pact" that Torres's UNE and the conservative parties that were left out of the 2nd round would allegedly represent (like the President Giammatei' VAMOS party). Arévalo in the latest phase of his campaign has been in a conciliatory tone in favor of the "reestablishment of the Rule of Law" while Torres has turned more to the right with the typical conservative criticism of issues of "progressive" ideology influenced by evangelical churches moving away from social democratic positions, perceived as the "candidate of the system".

Nothing can be ruled out if tomorrow's election ends up closer than expected, everything remains in the hands of the Guatemalan people.

[MRCVzla]

Official results page: https://segundaeleccion.trep.gt/#!/tc1/ENT
First results reported are very early, around 300 of the 24,749 acts, Torres was leading but Arévalo seems gaining steam and now leads, still too close to call.

A member of the TSE has reportedly resigned due to her receiving death threats.

[MRCVzla]

Yesterday, Arévalo was proclaimed President Elect by the Electoral Court (TSE), but at the same time, the Citizens Registry of the said TSE suspended the registration of Movimiento Semilla (Arévalo's party). Since the results of the second round were known, Torres's UNE has not recognized Areválo's victory and has affirmed that there was "fraud" in the process.

[MRCVzla]

Update: The TSE overturns the suspension of Movimiento Semilla' party register until the proper end of the electoral process at late October, as according to Guatemalan' Electoral Law, they cannot suspend o cancel political parties during election period.
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1698451401272181029

[MRCVzla]

A very concerning update... and a potential coup happening as well.
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1733232424941715919

[MRCVzla]

Today's Bernardo Árevalo sworn-in as President of Guatemala, but even at the last minute, the "deep state" still try to postpone his swearing-in as long as possible. Just today, a few hours after his inauguration, the Constitutional Court (highest court) has made effective the suspension of the SEMILLA Movement's registration as a political party, causing its elected deputies to be considered independent and cannot form a parliamentary group or be part of of the Congress Bureau, this has caused delays in the installation of the new Congress and there have been protests by pro-Democracy protesters in the vicinity of Congress. Right at this time Árevalo was supposed to be sworn in, but it has been delayed, there are several Latin American presidents as well as the King of Spain attending the inauguration.

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1746647456107168091

https://twitter.com/ProgIntl/status/1746632007650619535

https://twitter.com/ProgIntl/status/1746637535730643393

[MRCVzla]

White smoke at Congress' installation, after hours and hours and despite all their 23 MPs sworn-in as independents (plus 2 pro-Árevalo MPs from UNE), Semilla got the Speaker post, and the party finally formed their own caucus, with more than 6 hours of delay seems the Árevalo-Herrera sworn-in will finally happen, prior of this, the Foreign Affairs Ministers (or "chancellors") present at the inauguration as well EU High Representative Borrell or OAS Secretary Almagro express their preocupation for the delays and the state of democracy after today' events. Even the Constitutional Court (who earlier suspended Semilla' party register) notified the Congress would violate the law if the delays continued.

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1746747840213426330
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1746749651360076242
https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1746735169242030091

[MRCVzla]

After midnight (local time), Bernardo Arévalo de León has finally sworn-in as the 52° President of Guatemala for the term 2024-2028. Former President Alejandro Giammattei was absent and prior to the ceremony he handed over the symbols of the presidency (he and his outgoing VP were elected anyway as Members of PARLACEN btw).

[MRCVzla]

Just to give a last update, yesterday was the repeat election of the Congress board after the CC rulling and with the Semilla MPs accepting being designated as independents. Nery Ramos, a former director of the National Civil Police between 2015-2018 and MP for the AZUL party is the new President of the Congress with the same party alliance who supported the brief Semilla-led board (now expanded to 115 votes for), including some rebel MPs of the Sandra Torres' UNE who seems to have some internal crisis between her leader and the parliamentary caucus who is open to work with President Arévalo.